The Big 3-0

For those of you who don't know, I just turned 30. It came, it went and now I am 30 years and one day old.

With age comes wisdom (allegedly) and more candles on the birthday cake. Always thinking like a photographer, I just had to take this opportunity to try something new and create a blog post at the same time!

Working with different kinds of lighting can be fun and candles are no exception, the more the better.

Using a tripod and a shutter release, I set my camera to f/14, 1/60 sec, ISO 3200 at 53 mm - and this is what I got...

So, the next time a birthday comes around in your family, give this technique a shot (pun intended)! 

DIY - Laundry Room Vinyl Decal Picture Frame

Laundry. It consumes most of our lives and seems to grow exponentially when we aren't looking. That being said, I honestly think we spend more time in our laundry rooms than we would like to admit. Why then, should those rooms not be aesthetically pleasing?

For instance, I have a sign in my laundry room - which by no means looks like something out of Better Homes and Gardens - that reads "Drop your pants here".

I have found that I really like laundry humor. It's dirty, but in a good way...

While perusing a local craft store, I came across vinyl decals. "Wash - Dry - Fold - Repeat" one decal read. Enter my "ah-ha" moment of adding photography to the laundry room using an image that I took of some weathered clothespins that had been left outside near a clothesline.

The vinyl decal, the photo and a floating picture frame - that I already had at home - lead to the following idea for sprucing up your laundry room.

How To:


1)   The trick with floating frames is trying find the center of the frame to place your photo. Now, by no means am I going to offer any advice as to how to find the center, as I am sure that I did it in the most backwards way possible. Although, you want to mark and adhere the photo onto the back piece of glass.

I did find that using a dry erase marker to make the marks on the glass works wonderfully, and comes off easily!

I may measure badly, but I did want to
take a picture of the tape measure ;)

2)   Use photo safe double stick tape to adhere the photo to the glass. (Again to the back piece of glass, and obviously this would be a good time to wipe off the marks)

3)   As for the decals, just follow the directions that come on the packaging. Tip: I did find that using a popsicle stick to press firmly against the bottom of the clear adhesive sheet as you are pulling it back helped to keep the vinyl on the glass. 

This is an 11 x 14 inch floating frame with an
8 x 10 inch photo.

As a smaller option, I do sell this image in my shop in the form of a handmade greeting card, which you could frame in a 5 x 7 inch frame and put in your laundry room as well!

Now, google laundry humor, and you can find fun sayings like: "Laundry today, or naked tomorrow!"

DIY - Family Photo Collage Frame

What started out as a simple way to fill a space left on the wall of my son's room - after we took down his crib and put up his "big boy" bed one year ago - turned into filling a different kind of spiritual space.

When the crib came down, I had to hang something on the wall above his bed because the gap between the wooden letters spelling out his name, and the top of the bed was too much for me to handle.

In a devine moment of inspiration, I decided to print photos of my son's family members from both sides of our family and put them into a collage picture frame.  Unfortunately, there wasn't enough room for aunts and uncles, but we did squeeze in a space for his cousins, since he loves them so much.

There are four generations represented in this frame, and one has since passed, which makes me even more appreciative that pictures were taken when they were, because regardless of whether or not they are still here;

"Family is forever."

Trust me, I am not delusional. We all have moments when we aren't the biggest fan of someone(s) in our family for whatever reason, but honestly, they are forever and my husband and I really want to make that impression on our children.

The truly inspirational part of this story has nothing to do with simply hanging a picture frame, our son created that all on his own. 

It started as him standing on his bed and pointing to each photo and telling us who was in it.  Soon, it became a quiz of sorts and we would ask him where someone was and he would jump up, climb onto his bed and point to them.  At one point, he even asked where his youngest cousin was. (She had just been born - which reminds me, her picture still isn't in the frame!)

Family collage. If you want to add in more people, just use
a larger frame. The more the merrier!

Photo tip:

Try to take multi-generational photos when you can. Trust me, it will be worth it later on. Also, when creating a collage try to throw in some black and white or sepia-toned images amongst the color photos. Doing so breaks up the monotony of color photos, not to mention, some photos just look better without color.

Speaking of families, sometime soon I intend on creating a multi-generational family gallery on our hallway wall. Once, I do I will share that with you as well. You think I like pictures now, well I LOVE old pictures, and have some big ideas on what to do with them!

This project is so simple yet, at least for our family, it ended up meaning so much more than we had ever intended or imagined. 

A dog and his boy

Recently, I ran across a quote that I knew I had to remember. It is a simple concept, and one very true in my house:

"Every dog needs a boy." 

This quote inspired me to re-vamp a picture frame that I have hanging next to the back door. The frame has three hooks and it has been used as a convenient place to hang the dog's leash.  All this time, I only had one photo of the dog gazing out at a pasture of cows, but I had never put anything in the two spots flanking that photo.  To say that this looked extremely tacky is putting it mildly, unless seeing the heads of the screws on the backboard of the frame is considered art.

I decided that this would make for a simple project that is both practical and thought provoking. I'll bet some of you have similar inspiration in your house too!

Before I get into the step-by-step, I want to say something about the photo, here's what I have in the frame now:

At the time, these two stared out the front window often. 

Photo tip:  There is a trick to photographing subjects that are "back-lit".  Your camera, on an automatic setting, will want to meter off of main light source - which is coming from outside in this case - and will underexpose your subjects.  If you have a simple point-and-shoot camera, the best thing you can do is make sure that your flash is on and fires when you take the photo. That way, your subjects will be properly exposed and the background will end up slightly over-exposed, which is fine. 

If you have a manual setting on your camera, or an SLR camera, set the Tv (shutter speed priority setting) to 1/100 second and pop your flash, so that it fires as well.  This does the trick! 

You would kick yourself if you missed this kind of "Kodak" moment when it presented itself, so practice taking pictures of your kids, pets, anyone who is willing, with the window directly behind them. (In daylight of course, it won't work the same at night!)

After I found this quote, I knew what to do with those two empty openings. I split the quote in half, hand-writing one half on one piece of textured scrapbook paper and the other half on the opposite piece using a thin-tip black marker.

Now onto the frame. Here is the super-simple photo tutorial:

Textured scrapbook paper. (Paper cutters are a life saver!)

Paper alone was too bland, so I found some thin ribbon
and added it to the bottom of both pieces of  paper.

I simply attached it on the back side with transparent tape.

"Every dog needs a boy."

There you have it!  I can't believe I hadn't thought of this sooner, but I think it was one of things that required a little bit of inspiration to come up with the perfect use for something that I already had. 

Here's to inspiration!