Tinkerbell party II

A few rolls of crepe paper go a long way and are always impressive (especially to a group of 4-5 year olds).

I used lots of the ideas that people suggested a while ago. We had the Queen of the Fairies visit our party and grant each girl a 'talent'. She and Minnie had special wings that we made together. For each girl, we made a no-sew tutu that they got to take home with them. They're surprisingly easy and inexpensive, check out the video tutorial here.

I keep trying to find good pictures of her cute wings but these are all I have. Oh well, the party was a hit and we had tons of fun. Thanks everyone who came!

Birthday cake

Minnie wanted a Tinkerbell party for her birthday this year.

Frosting-from-a-can is never what you want to decorate a cake with. Buttercream icing is easy to make, colors well and it holds crisp edges when it dries. These drop flowers look fancy but are actually fairly easy. Wilton has some great cake-decorating instructions online with pretty much every technique you could possibly want. And if you were wondering, the Tink charm is hanging from a piece of bent coat hanger that I covered with frosting after it was in place.

Photoshop Friday - black & white

Any photo-editing program can turn any digital image black and white, but with Photoshop you can enhance the original image to get a really great picture.

First, start with a picture that has good contrast between the background and subject. If your person has dark hair and is sitting in front of a dark leafy tree, their hair will just disappear into the background and it won't be the greatest picture. The same goes for really busy backgrounds - they will just look muddy. And some pictures just plain look better in color! So picking the right picture to turn B&W is important.


This picture will look great in B&W, the girl's hair stands out from the darker background and her eyes have a nice sparkle. Before I turn it B&W though, I'm going to pump up the contrast a bit more. We'll do this in Image -> Adjustments -> Levels


Mess around with the sliders until things are kind of hyper-contrasted. We talked about the features of Levels on a previous Photoshop Friday, if you want to review. Remember, you can always back up and start over if you don't like the results. You might even find a color version of the picture that you like better than the original. But nothing is permanent (just make sure you don't save over your master file!)

I usually bring the middle arrow up (to the left) and the left arrow back towards the middle. Beware the right arrow - you can really blow out your white areas and make the picture look 'hot'.

When that is done, I see what Image -> Adjustments -> Brightness/Contrast can do for me. Again, play around with the slider arrows to see what happens.


At this point the picture is going to look hyper-colored and usually not so great. But stay with me!

Not all versions of Photoshop have a black-and-white feature. Never fear! If there isn't a Black and White command in the Image -> Adjustments tab, click Hue/Saturation



Take the slider for Saturation all the way down (left). Voilà!


Just so you'll see what the original picture would have looked like if you had simply run a regular black&white command on it.

We're getting to the fun part!

Finally we're getting close to the end of this big job. I still have the kitchen to paint and (shudder) the floor to think about... but progress has been made!

I've had my eye on the same style of kitchen table for a few years now. I'm content to shop around for stuff like this forever because there's no way I'm springing for a table that costs more than several cars we've owned. My requirements were:
- a wood top with lacquered black legs.
- big enough to seat 7 (4 chairs and a bench)
- have an additional leaf for large dinners.

Whenever I would see an advertised 'good deal' on a table, I would go to the store to find that the actual table was 18 inches wide and would seat 7 people only if they were Oompa Loompas. However, I did finally find the exact table I wanted for almost the smaller amount of money that I was willing to pay.

And to match the black legs of our table, I sprayed the legs of the kids table so they could have their own matching dining table. Hooray!

Bookcase

Here's the used-to-be hallway, which is now a built-in bookcase! The carpentry work was done by our friend Devin and was definitely something that was best left to the experts.

Popcorn balls

My sister-in-law came over one evening and we had fun putting these together. The recipe is fairly simple and they are delicious! Because you have to boil sugar, this is definitely not a kid-friendly cooking project. Even though we were careful, I did manage to get a pretty good burn from the hot syrup. So keep those toddlers away until everything has cooled.

Caramel Corn Balls
6 cups popcorn (you can pop the kernels in hot oil or you can do what we did - pop 3 bags of low-salt, low-butter microwave popcorn. Open the bag a tiny bit and shake it upside down and let all the kernels out before you pour out the popcorn)

1/2 cup butter
2 cups packed light brown sugar
1 cup light corn syrup
1 8oz. can sweetened condensed milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

In a medium saucepan combine butter, sugar, and corn syrup. Stir well and bring to boiling over medium heat. Stir in condensed milk; simmer, stirring constantly, until thermometer reads 240 degrees F. Stir in vanilla.

Pour over popcorn and stir to coat. Place popcorn on a sheet of wax paper and use the paper to form the candy corn into a loosely-packed ball.

We put salted almonds into half of the popcorn balls and that was also delicious. You could stir in other yummy things, like butterscotch chips or MnM's.

Baby shower invite

My friend Jami is expecting a baby girl within a week and we had a shower for her over the weekend. This is the cute invite that we sent out.

If you need digital or printed invitations for any event (birthday, shower, etc) please contact me! jerilynphoto {at} gmail {dot} com

Hired help

Still trying to get the most noticeable of the words off the wall. This method was definitely the easiest I've tried so far.

I'm annoyed with Sherwin Williams

In spite of all their claims to have excellent paint, I'm still having problems with the words 'bum' and 'panda' showing through on my walls. I've rolled on no less than 1 coat of primer and 4 additional coats of paint and I can still see words! Also I can still see where all the electrical switches have been edged.

The store will be hearing from me this weekend.

In additional news, we continue to make progress with our home-alteration. You may remember this hallway...

...which is now a rad broom/vacuum closet. You can never have too much storage space. I'm hoping that other in-the-way things can now live in this lovely closet, like my huge stock pot that has never fit in any cupboard we have ever owned.

With the one major exception, the painting is coming along nicely. I hope to get all the pictures hung before this weekend. And, even though you wouldn't believe it from this picture, you can now walk more than 2 feet in any direction without tripping. Unless you fall in the gaping hole in the carpet where the wall used to be. I'm considering turning it into a moat. Complete with moat monster of course.

Learn from my mistakes

If you should find yourself in this situation, don't ever NEVER write words in paint for your 4-year-old to sound out as you're edging the ceilings and door frames. It may seem like a good idea. It may keep her entertained for long periods of time. You may even congratulate yourself on approaching the reading thing in an unorthodox manner. However...

When all the paint dries, and the light hits it just right, you may find that you can still read the word 'bum' faintly on the wall.

Oh yeah, the sheet rock is done. Looks good, eh?

Why some things are better left to the professionals

Because then you get to spend a day feeling like you live in a HAZMAT scrub-down zone. Hooray!

What's really going on here is the sanding and spray-texture that finishes up the sheet rock work. Instead of having a gaping hole in between the two rooms, now we have one seamless surface. The last step is the gigantic trench in the carpet. I'm working on a temporary drawbridge to span the gap, but hopefully soon we'll be getting new floors and that will solve the problem. Keep your fingers crossed!