Holiday Kids Photography

Adorable pics of a recent holiday photo session with a 14 month old young lady!

Give your Charlie Brown Christmas Tree a Make Over

If you are like us & have a really really "sad" Christmas tree then this blog post is for you! We purchased our artifical tree at Canadian Tire when we had just moved into our first home & we were pretty broke. The price tag was right & I figured we could make it work. This tree is pretty bad. Here is what it looks like........

Poor thing! Where are all the branches?!

 Two years ago I decided to jazz it up with some wide wire ribbon that I purchased at Michaels. I watched a couple youtube videos for inspiration & decided to go with the technique where the ribbon waterfalls down from the top of a tree making large loops.

Here is my roll of gold, white, & clear ribbon

Gather together the end of the roll & wrap it around one of the branches. You want to hold the ribbon & wrap the wire branch right around it. You can press the branch tighter to hold the ribbon in firm.  Start at the bottom of the tree & work your way up. 

End of the ribbon roll

Wrapping the wire branch around the ribbon

 Next you want to make your way up to the next branch. I try to place it where there are extra large gaps & holes in my sad Christmas tree. You are going to do the same method of gathering the ribbon together & then wrapping the wire branch around. 

Helpful side note....I put the roll of ribbon under my arm pit when I'm not using it. Things can get real messy if it starts to unravel before you are ready for it. 

Continue going up toward the top of the tree & then begin to make my way down. You begin to get a waterfall of the ribbon like this.....

                                                 

Eventually you run out of ribbon (hopefully it is in perfect timing like when you are at the back bottom branch of the tree). Our tree was quite small so I only did the front part of the tree & not the back that faces the wall. You could easily use two rolls of ribbon for this project though. 

After reaching the end, go back and play/pull the loops to make them perfect & in good placement. I love getting one of the tree lights behind the ribbon so that when the tree is on it glisten's through the gold. 

You are now ready to decorate!

So in love & it is a really quick & cheap way to spruce up your tree. 

Here's one more look at the before & after.

New Fav's with my Nikon 50mm Lens

Engagement Party

I'm going to share how I used my Silhouette Cameo to create decorations for an upcoming engagement party that I am hosting.

We decided to keep the decorations minimal & focus on creating a delicious meal consisting of puff pastry chicken with cream sauce, salad, potatoes & biscuits! My mouth is watering just thinking about it.

To celebrate the engagement we are going to enjoy the clinging of champagne glasses as we toast to the happy couple. I decided to jazz up the cups by making these ring shaped name tags. I purchased a ring image from the Silhouette store & cut on white paper. I used my Kodak printer to print out names. You can do this by: changing the line color & fill color of the text & sending to printer. Before sending to printer make sure you add registration marks so that the silhouette can register the registration marks and cut perfectly around you diamond ring!

Next I constructed a simple banner using my Silhouette Cameo, card stock, distressing ink, sponge, scor tape & lace...everything of which I had at home! I love when that happens. 

I decided on the size & style I wanted the base card to look like & sent it to my Silhouette Cameo to be cut. I made sure to make circles in the base so that I could feed my ribbon through to hang the banner.

I then decided on the font & heart images & sent it to my cameo to cut.

I began to ink distress the letters using distressing ink & a small sponge. I felt this was necessary to make the banner look a bit more rustic & soft. After inking, I taped down the letters using 1/4" scor tape.

 Using some lace, I strung the cards along. I fed the lace going through the back & up through the front.

And last but not least I hung it up in the front entrance door way so that it will be the first thing my guests see when they enter our home!

Mother Daughter Love

Love these photos from a recent shoot

Foto Folio Creations

Around this time last year I took a course at a local scrapbooking store, Knit 2 Scrap 2. I had never considered myself into "scrapbooking" & truthfully was a bit hesitant to enter this culture of crazy "scrapbookers".

The creation of focus in this class was creating a Mini Album. The tutorial & class was developed from Paper Phenomenon, with Kathy King who is the master creator.

This type of scrapbooking is different in that you construct the entire book from the very base, to the pages & finally the matting/decorating. The first class was VERY overwhelming & it was basically like learning a new language. For my first project we did a hard covered album. There are about 6 pages in the album with tons of inserts & lots of paper layering.

Cover

Inside Page & Tag

Decorated Pages

Decorated Pages

Decorated Pages

Decorated Pages *my absolute favourite :)

I found it a bit difficult to work with colors like green, orange, red & yellow. They typically aren't my usual "go to's" but I have to say that I am pleasantly surprised with how this turned out!

Naturally, I became a bit obsessed with this kind of scrapbooking & decided to take it one step further. I purchased the online tutorials from Paper Phenomenon because I really fell in love with the Foto Folios which are a bit more complex than the Mini Album I started with.

In only two months I have made four different Folios & I have been in love with how each one has turned out.

The below photos display one I created as a wedding gift. This was the Style 4 - Gate Fold Folio from Paper Phenomenon Foto Folio. Follow the link to view in the Paper Phenomenon online shop.

Side Note: I do have to admit that I found the PP website extremely confusing to navigate through. I did some research watching youtube videos to find what style I wanted. I purchased the Foto Folio 2 package not realizing that the specific folio I wanted wasn't included in this package. I contacted customer support & they were not helpful at all & I was a bit disappointed as they did not resolve my problem. Hopefully this is something they can work on in the future.

Front Page

Cover Opened

Flaps Opened 

Inside Pages & Pockets

Back Page

The paper pack I used for this Folio was from Michaels & I just loved how the gold & navy looked together! Amazing!

Side Note: If you are unfamiliar with Foto Folios, the decorative paper is used as a photo mat for different sized photos to be placed on top of. When filled with photos the decorative paper just "peaks" through & thus it doesn't look so busy. The books are filled with pockets, photo mats, insert cards & journaling areas so they can become quite complex!

The next one I tackled was another Gate Fold Folio but this time the recipient was a friend of mine who was gifting it to his wife for her birthday. I used the paper collection Pen Pals from Pink Paisley, with some accents of gold from the previous foto folio we just explored.  I just loved how it turned out.

Front Page

Opened Cover

Opened Flaps

Pockets & Flaps

Back Page

I had a ton of left over to Pen Pals paper, so I decided to craft another Folio. This time I changed it up & made Style 3 - Envelope Folio, Side Loading, from Paper Phenomenon Foto Folio This particular folio was more of a book style.

Front Page

Opened; exposing envelopes

Page with Pocket

Small Pocket Pages

Larger Pockets & Side Loading Envelopes

Last Page

Back Page

The most current Folio I made was Style 2 - Match Book Folio from Paper Phenomenon Foto Folio. The recipient of this one is going to be for a friend featured on my blog who is expecting a little girl in January! The paper collection I used was from Bo-Bunny. I have to say that this is one of my most favourite paper collections that I have worked with.

Cover Page

Photo Mats in Front Cover

Opened Book

Pull Out Photo Books

Four Large Photo Mats; two sided with a pocket & photo mats

The matchbook was a different style & I keep feeling like there should be more too it. I kind of like the simplicity of it for a baby gift though because it will allow for a lot of journaling & personal touches.

These folios can be extremely time consuming but I think they make for amazing gifts for friends & family! With both packages of Folios there are a total of 12 Folios that can be made, as well as mini folios, storage boxe & a pouch. So although it seems like I have done a lot of projects....there are way more to come!