Tie-Die Cupcakes and Birthday Shenanigans

For Lily's Birthday this year I wanted to make something memorable and totally different! I wanted to bake something fun for her to take to preschool so I decided to make tie-dye cupcakes! You start with a box of white cake mix and add gel food coloring to the batter. Because I wanted 4 different colors, I separated the batter into 4 bowls and added a different color to each bowl. Make sure to buy the vibrant gel colors and not the pastels!

Here is a picture of the lineup before we started spooning the batter into the liners.

This is how the inside of the cupcake will look after baking. Sorry for the terrible pic but all I had was my point and shoot!

Brian even got in on the action and helped with filling the cupcake liners. The trick is to spoon the different colors on top of each other making sure to add the batter to the center of the liner.

The different colors will bake together and won't mix! It was such a hit at her school that the teachers asked how I made them!

All packed up and ready to be devoured!

Lilykins,

I can't believe it has already been three years since you came into my world! You are the sweetest little girl and I love you more than you can possibly know! I love the way you run up to me and hug my legs, and the way you tell me every night you are going to get big and strong and play football like uncle melts me! You are the bubbliest three year old and you have never met a person you didn't want to make friends with. You are the light of my life and I can't wait to see what amazing things you accomplish with your life. Happy Birthday Sweet Girl!

Kisses from Mommy

Lil Works of Art

I have been collecting Lily's scribbles and masterpieces since she first began her love affair with crayons and I have been wondering what to do with the massive collection I have accumulated over the past 2 years. Today I was reading another fav blog, kenziepoo.com and received the perfect answer. A collage made by Interior Decorator Jan Eleni! Isn't it just beautiful!

Jan will collect your child’s art and other paper treasures, they edit the pieces and pull together a feel of the art, then all art will be returned to you in archival boxes. Their end product is a professionally framed collage of little square-sized repro cards for you to treasure. A vast collection of art turned into one specialty piece of art. What a great idea! Love it!

Here are also some lovely children’s rooms Jan decorated, which I love! In one of the photo’s you will notice her lovely collage.

To find out more details and order information on the collage you can visit their online store here.

Jan Eleni site
Jane Eleni Online Store

Lovely Things Thursday

I have become quite enchanted by a few things lately...

Bleubird Vintage Blog

Miss James is the princess of vintage fashion and is expecting a lovely little bird. I can't get enough of her weekly belly shots and love the way she mixes her vintage pieces so beautifully.

Sexy Little Things Noir Body Mist from Victoria's Secret smells so delish! I've been wearing it non stop since I received it as a gift.

Design*Sponge is another of my favorite blogs! They have crafty ideas and I die for all the features they do on refurbished furniture. I have added refurbishing to my goal list for this year because of all the amazing pieces they show on their blog.

I hope to make this a weekly feature and show some of the things that make my heart flutter!

Sewing Machines and Coloring My Hair

I'm going to start this post with the simple fact that I am an addict... I am addicted to hair color and pretty fabric! In the past six months I have gone from a blonde...

to a redhead...

and I am currently a dark chestnut brunette.

What can I say, I love changing my look. I also love making things. It doesn't matter what it is as long as I can craft it with my own hands. I went through a phase where I made feather hairpieces every waking second of the day. I was incredibly good at it and even had a store carrying some of my pieces but I eventually became bored and moved on. I am now obsessed with my new sewing machine and have plans to make Lily a whole wardrobe of pretty things! Just my thoughts for today....XOXO

Busy, Busy, Busy Year

I realize that it has been many many months since I last posted. I have had so many things going on in my life that I put my blog on the way, way, can hardly see it back burner. I made a very painful but necessary decision last year and chose to go back to school.

I am still shooting weddings and doing portrait sessions but not nearly as many as I had hoped I would be able to. I decided to finish up my nursing prerequisites and apply to CSUMB at the same time. I have since completed every single one of those miserable prereqs and just received my acceptance letter to CSUMB! Yay for milestones! My plan is to apply to nursing school in September of this year and also work on my bachelor of art degree in the mean time. Because nursing schools are so impacted, I am estimating it will take another year and a half to two years before I am accepted, which gives me just enough time to finish my bachelor degree. Ultimately, I would love to be a nurse full time which would mean three to four twelve hour shifts a week and then that would allow me time to do my photography on the weekends and on the days I am not working. We will see how it works out in a few years. I have decided to focus most of my energy on classes and studying at this time so you will be seeing mostly posts on things I love and things that inspire me. I will definitely work on posting more regularly.

Speaking of things that inspire me, I found this video on Make a House a Home I want to watch it over and over then go to bed and dream of swimming in fabulous navy blue sheets!

Frustrations and Contentment

Lately I have been getting really upset with the turtle slow pace of my photography career and being an avid blog stalker has not been helping the situation. I read between 20 and 30 other photographers blogs on a daily basis and somedays it can be inspiring but other days it can make me downright green with envy! I sit there and start asking "What am I doing wrong? Why hasn't my business taken off like all these other photographers?"

It's funny how God works because the message the guest speaker brought to my amazing church really was meant for me! It spoke straight to my heart! During the summer our pastor takes a break and we have a ton of inspiring guest speakers. In July, we had Dr. Darryl Delhousaye and he was such a blessing. We have been studying the book of Phillippians written by Paul while he is in Roman prison. The sermon was about contentment, Dr. Darryl spoke about how contentment is learned and we humans are not born with it. We must learn how to be content with what we have in the present and not be so focused on what we think we "need". I have been so focused on the lenses and the website and branding that goes along with my photography business, that I have lost sight of who has given me the gift to be able to see the image and capture it. The Lord has blessed me with this creativity and this longing to capture the beauty in everyday moments. If it were not for Him, I would not be able to do what I love so deeply.

Despite everything that I think I "need", my camera is working and the lenses I have have gotten me this far. I have been able to capture some amazing images with the equipment that I have and I need to thank God for blessing me with the things I have right this moment.

I hope when I look back at this time in my life in the future I can laugh at the miniscule things i was stressing about.

Almost Baby: Gina Steelman

A few weeks ago, I went to Mike and Gina Steelman's house with the intention to do a mini maternity shoot. We figured if I brought Lily with me then she could play with her son Judah and we would be able to have a little bit of time to do her pictures. Our plan took a nosedive when the little ones got bored after 5 minutes and decided we needed to entertain them. So we were only able to take a few pictures before they both had a meltdown.  Here are the results of our super mini maternity shoot: