Photo Editing...

Still trying to teach myself...:)

What I did above was edit the colors a little, delete the background, and put the remaining selection over a free background I got online. (someday I'll figure how to make that from scratch though) Then I "vignetted" it by darkening the edges to feature the center of the image. I did that by adding a black layer with low opacity over top and then I added a "layer mask" which basically blocks the effects of the black layer.

If you want to some pretty cool editing without spending any money go to www.gimp.org.

GIMP stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program. It's what I use right now...

Just download and start taking tutorials!

Ivy Pot and Autumn Wreath

I made this with cable, floral wire, a styrofoam cup, ivy clippings, and an earthen flower pot. You can use a pliable twig, actually, instead of cable. Here's what you do: Take the twig, bending it, stab both ends into the upside down cup. Put the cup in the pot. Start wiring the ivy to the twig. Tie a ribbon or random doo-dads to the structure. I stuffed some flowers in there, but I knew they'd wilt very fast without water. The ivy, however, lasts for weeks. Stuff leftover clippings in the pot to cover the cup. I also took a long strand of ivy, looped it, wired it in place and shoved up around the pot so it encircled it. You could use ribbon or that twiney kinda stuff to wrap around the pot, if you want. It looks pretty rad.

I made this wreath last autumn, in early November. The leaves on our trees aren't quite so brilliantly colored yet, but I can't wait to make one again soon!

I used all sorts of random this I found going on our property. If you are planning to decorate for thanksgiving, here's some advice I learned the hard way: You need to gather everything in late October, early November, and string them up to dry. This particular wreath was made fresh, so it withered before thanksgiving came. *Sniff* Notice the pinecone is all small and spikey. That's because I procrastinated gathering pinecones while they were open, dry, and plentiful. If you wait 'til November like I did, they'll be few and far between. BTW, if you spray paint pinecones silver or gold, and then spray them with glitter, they look FABULOUS on your Thanksgiving or Christmas wreaths.

!!! I just had an idea!!! We should have a wreath party! We can all collect as much as we can find on our properties, pick a date, get together and make wreaths! Readers, if this interests you email me at asleadds@gmail.com. :)

Thriftiness!!

This is a beautiful gorgeous hutch thingamy that I bought for $112 dollars at a thrift store. I saw it and fell in love with it several weeks ago. When I returned, it was not there! I raced to the back of the store where they keep their furniture merchandise, and lo and behold!! It had been tucked back against the far wall. Hwahaha. I bought it on August 31st, the very last day it was on sale for 20% off. Woow. And closing time wasn't too far off either. I also found the following items I have so fashionably and elegantly modeled down below.

And awesome black vest missing a few buttons and a gorgeous candelabra thing! The vest is supposed to have four buttons, actually, one was already missing and another promptly popped off as soon as I tried it on. I had to, of course, dress in the rest of the costume I had it in mind for.

I plan to sew some swanky buttons on the vest, clean the wax off the candlestick and repair the hutch a bit. *Sigh* I love thrift stores.

Now for the edifying part of this post:
I all of a sudden had a revelation the other day as to what absurd young ladies like me ought to do while they wait for someone to bother marrying them...SPEND MONEY! Hehe... almost. I decided that I should start using my bank savings (that are rotting away after all) to accumulate furniture and items of necessity for my future castle. Oh, okay, the candles are more asthetic than necessary, but the vest, now, might attract me a rich suitor or something like that. (Do rich suitors like vests? I'd better google that)

But no, really, I'd encourage you girls to look towards finding good deals for necessities for your future home. When you do get married, don't expect to find a whole flurry of great prices just waiting for you. Besides, most "good" deals need repair, (if they don't, how lame is that?!! That leaves out most of the fun!) and you don't want to sit in an empty house with a bunch of delapidated furniture and vests missing half their buttons after your honeymoon. So, there's my sage advice. Think ahead. Be thrifty. Oh and read this blog post of mine...

Cute shirt!

I personally love this look, so when I saw this on Sewingpatterns.com I knew I wanted to make one. But I thought it would be ridiculous to spend $10 on such a simple pattern so I'm just making up on my own. It takes like a half hour to make and it's super easy. Looks really classy, wear with straight jeans with flats or heels. If you decide to make it more of a shirt as opposed to a tunic, like I did, a full skirt looks great under it too. The fabric shown in the picture looks rather blah to me. I used a soft stone-blue linen-type fabric I got at a thrift store. It's quite nice. If you've got the fabric, and if you like the look, by all means give it a try!

I still need a decent way to belt it. The leather string that I used slips around and gets the shirt looking lumpy. Oh, and thanks brother Aaron for taking my picture. I've actually never had my picture taken like that before. I always take the pictures! :)
Anyway, enjoy!

Knit Dishcloths

This post is dedicated to Stephanie: Remember when you taught me how to knit one day in the car? I loved it, and even though I didn't have needles, I went home and used two pencils and some yarn, and started knitting! Although, I think my first "project" ended up as a cat toy. :D

For June's Once-a-Month Crafting, I'm posting my Grandma's pattern for Knit Dishcloths! I've made it several times. If you know how to knit, you can make this beautiful wash cloth. If you don't, contact Steph or me, and we'll make sure you learn. :)

Making this pattern, you are starting at one corner and getting bigger and bigger until it's as wide as you want, then getting smaller till you have as many stitches as you started with. It also is unique because it has a cool border edge. When it's finished, it's about 9 inches square, and is good for washing dishes, tables, people, -pretty much anything.

All you need is two knitting needles (size 8-10. I used size 8 for my last one.) and a skein of "Sugar & Cream" cotton yarn (One skein makes 2 dishcloths).

Here's the pattern:
1. Cast on 4 stitches. Knit 4 stitches.
2. Knit 2, yarn over (yo), knit rest of row
3. Repeat #2 until you have 43 stitches on your needle.
4. Knit 1, knit 2 together, yo, knit 2 together, knit rest of row.
5. Repeat #4 until you have 4 stitches left.
6. Bind off knitting those 4 stitches.
7. Cut the yarn, knot it, and weave the end into the edge.

Yarn over: Just put the yarn over the needle between stitches. This adds another stitch.
Knit 2 Together: Put the needle through 2 stitches instead of one, and knit. This makes one stitch out of two.
Bind off: Knit one, knit two, pull the first stitch off the needle over the second, knit three, pull the second stitch off the needle over the third, knit four, pull the third stitch off the needle over the fourth.

It's fun to use different colors of yarn:

Left, a yarn that changes colors on its own. Middle, a solid color. Right, you can also change colors in the middle by tying two ends of the yarn together. (In this case, Grandma used up a bit of blue yarn that was left over.)

Have fun knitting!
p.s. Please comment if you have questions, or if you have a favorite knitting pattern, or if you made this!!!

Maternity Photography

Friendship Tag Bag

For this month's Once-a-Month Crafting, I'm posting a craft that makes a great gift any time of year. It's personalized, special and a guarantee friend-pleaser! I also had sooooo much fun making this. It's not just enjoyable for the recipient! :)




I have a list of all the inside-jokes my friend Lindsey and I have. I thought for her birthday I could make for her little reminders of some of the things on the list.












Here's what I did:
I found or created little things that would remind her of the jokes on the list.
Then on little slips of scrapbooking paper I wrote the name of the joke or a quote or what we were doing when we made it up...
Then I attached the tags to the trinkets with yarn and scotch tape.
I placed each trinket in a giftbag with the tags hanging out.


When I gave the gift to Lindsey, she had so much fun pulling out each gift and laughing with me over funny memories!



I encourage you to make a Friendship tag bag. All you need is a little creativity to build this gift, and it sure will bless you and your friend!

Happy Crafting!