Christmas Project #1 - FINISHED

I finished project #1.  It was a royal pain to track down the foam core circle that I wanted to use.  Craft Warehouse was totally out.  The dollar store by my house was out.  I finally ended up at Hobby Lobby, where they had ONE left, and then I had to stand in line for 40 minutes because, even though it was CYBER Monday, there were still a million people out and about. 

In case you want to make your own.....first, go find a round foam core.  And ornaments.  You will also need a glue gun.  I found my ornaments at Walmart - I know. Don't judge.

 Second, take all of the metal tips off of the large ornaments. Press/screw them into the foam core, creating a hole. Fill the hole with glue and then replace the ornament back into the hole. Do this all around the foam core.

 Now to be perfectly honest, I WANTED this to be off. I'm trying to not be so.....symmetrical in all that I do, i.e., photos, scrapbooking, hanging pictures, etc. I have decided that while some things look fantastic when organized in a symmetrical fashion, some other things look even BETTER all scattered and in no apparent order. I decided to try that here.  While I stuck with a general pattern, I really tried to mix it up.

After you attach all of the large ornaments, it's time to dig into the medium size ones. Some of these can fit into the foam core, but for the most part, they will be glued to the large ornaments, or to each other if you are grouping some together. Again, I really had to tell my brain to NOT do a pattern of dark blue, light blue, silver, repeat, repeat. It killed me at first to have two dark blues touching each other. OCD? Maybe a touch - but hey, I'm trying!

 And once you are satisfied with the placement of all of the medium ornaments, it's time to move to the small ones. These are more like fillers - to fill in the gaps, cover any of the metal tops from the medium size ornaments, etc. Group them together....spread them out. Whatever is most eye-appealing to you. And you don't have to use ALL of the ornaments.  I did, but I also had lots of gaps to fill....since I wasn't being symmetrical and all.  ;)

 Ta da!

 And I tied a silver ribbon around what I deemed to be the "top", and I will hang it in my house when I do all of my Christmas decorating soon.

Christmas Project #1

A former wedding client of mine posted a photo on her Facebook page of a Christmas wreath she made at a craft night. I loved it so much that I had to ask her how she did it, and did a little research of my own. Here is her wreath:

And here are some other ones I have found on the internet:

(I LOVE this one)

Seems like there are two different ways - using a foam core circle, or using a wire hanger. I think the foam core and glue gun option would work better, so that's what I am going to try.  I will post the final product when I'm finished!

Project 2011: Through His Eyes, Part 46

Here are Carter's photos from last week:

We had a night last week where Eric was at work and I reallllly didn't want to cook dinner. So we ended up here.

 His movie shelf

 We went out shopping yesterday and I got the cutest piggy bank for Kendall - totally matches her room.

Motorcycles = Death Traps

Let me preface this story by saying that those who know me know that I hate motorcycles. I find them highly unsafe and, frankly, stupid.  I don't understand the appeal of the big Harleys, or the crotch rockets.  I can tolerate dirt bikes for riding on trails in the mountains, mostly because that's at a much lower rate of speed. But even then, I'm still not a fan and you won't see me on one - as a driver or a passenger.

So the other day, one of my neighbors from a street over was riding his new motorcycle - a crotch rocket...a speed machine.  At one point, he was seriously speeding through our streets, which really pissed me off becauser we have a lot of kids in our neighborhood and it was time for them to be coming home from school.  In fact, I was tempted to walk out and either say something to him, or alternatively, just throw something at him as he zoomed by.  I did neither.  He eventually stopped. 

Last night, I put down an incredible book I was reading at 11:30 and went to bed.  Eric went to bed long before me because he had a 4:30 shift to work this morning.  So when I came to bed, it woke him up.  We stayed awake for a minute, talking about Thanksgiving, and that's when we heard that stupid motorcycle again.  I told him about the previous day's joy rides up and down our street as the dude went flying by our bedroom window, AGAIN.  He made one lap down the street, and was making his return lap - I'm not kidding, I bet he was going at least 70 mph. In a neighborhood. Well somewhere along the line, he lost control and we heard an incredibly loud SMASH.  Both Eric and I said "oh shit!" and flew out of bed. I ran past Eric and told him to call 911 immediately, and we both ran out into the street. We saw the guy in the driveway of our neighbor across the street, the motorcycle was imbedded into the side of their van. Several other neighbors were also running over there to see if he was ok.  He was a bloody mess, that's for sure - huge laceration on his arm, and he had a shaved head so it was obvious to us that he also had some head injuries as the blood was flowing everywhere. We had him lie back down, at which point we could smell that he was totally drunk.  He kept yelling out for his friend, who lives around the corner, and he came running up. They insisted that we didn't need to call the police, but I told him that we already had them on the line and the ambulance was en route. Once we established that the guy was going to STAY conscious, another neighbor and I really chewed his ass for riding around like that in a neighborhood with children. The owner of the motorcycle, the one who actually lives here, said he completely understands how we felt and I said "actually, no I don't think you do because you were doing this yesterday as well. You are all damn lucky it was just him who got hurt, but you have destroyed someone else's vehicle and ruined everyone's night of sleep." That shut him up. An hour and a half later, one ambulance, one firetruck, seven police cars, and one tow truck finally left and I think Eric got in maybe two hours of sleep before he had to go to work.  What a night!

(1) Don't drink and drive

(2) If you insist on driving around a motorcycle, wear a damn helmet. You can do without a thumb or an arm or a leg, but you are pretty screwed without your head.

(3) Whether in a car or on a motorcycle, neighborhood streets aren't the place for hot-rodding/racing around. Trust me, I'm one of those people who likes to feel that "need for speed", but I'm not going to punch my car to 100 mph on a neighborhood road. (not that I would ever go that fast anyway...hi dad!)

Be safe, people!

The "V" {family}

Here is another one of my shoots from this last weekend.  I had a hard time editing these because I'm entering the "slow season" and my motivation to finish up the last couple of shoots us just....lacking. But I finally finished this shoot and got the discs all mailed off to the client.  Here are some samples:

Project 2011: Through His Eyes, Part 45

Here are Carter's pictures for the week - not many as we had a lot going on.

 (as a side note:  I hate this movie. I cringe every time he picks it out. It disturbs me and I'm tempted to just throw it away and claim it's "lost forever" from his movie shelf.)

Stacey and Chris {Engagement/Family}

I met up with this family last weekend for a hybrid shoot - Stacey and Chris are getting married next year, so I am doing their engagement and wedding photos, but they also wanted their kids and dog involved.  So we did a variety of photos.  I just have one more shoot to edit and I'm officially DONE for this year.  Time for my holiday break to enjoy time with the family, and George will be sent off to Idaho Camera to get a good cleaning.

Family Photos

Last weekend, I had a few photoshoots and one was my own family.  We haven't done family pictures since Carter was two years old, so it was time to update.  We met up with Eric's mom at Kathryn Albertson Park, since we were both there for shoots anyway. I had my hair done a couple days later, so I kind of wish we had waited!  But nonetheless, here is what we ended up with.

 And yes, we had plenty of "goofy" there.

Project 2011: Through His Eyes, Part 44

Late again!  I've had a lot of other posts scheduled for this week, so this one is just now making its way to the front of the line.  Here are Carter's photos for the week.

Our backyard is a solid blanket of leaves - great for Carter to play in!

 His lunch one day

 One fun thing we have been doing is letting Carter go through the toy magazines we have been getting in the mail.  He circles the items he wants Santa to know about.

 Good morning!

 Blurry - but it's the wood basket next to the fireplace.