My New Baby... Pentax Spotmatic F!!

This is my new baby!  A Pentax Spotmatic F with a Takumar 55mm 1.8 lens!  I LOVE it!  I ran my first roll of film through it (Fujifilm Superia X-tra 800) and the pictures are gorgeous!  These are my very first film photos and I am just thrilled to bits that I actually got the exposures right!  They aren't the look I'm going for, but I know now that I can properly expose the pictures with the settings I was using.  I'm so proud of myself! I was totally expecting for a lot of extremely over and under exposed images.  

Here is the very first photo I took with the Pentax. This is my sister helping cook Christmas dinner at my mom's.  The colors are dead on to what it really looked like.  

A close up of the Christmas tree...

Here is my african violet.  I've had it for almost a year now and it is finally blooming!  

A heart I drew in the snow on our driveway.  I tried to overexpose this one a little so the snow wouldn't be so grey.  

 Same with this one...

Here is the aftermath of Christmas morning.  No more presents and pine needles everywhere!  I love how this picture was exposed.

Same here....

So, in summary, I'm in love with my new camera!  I can't wait to develop some more rolls of film!  Now I have to do some research and hunting around to find the best photo lab with the lowest prices.  :)  I'm still trying to figure out how to best scan these into the computer.  The originals are better, but you get the idea.

Hope you all had a very merry Christmas!  Mine was, well, not so good due to the whole family getting the flu just in time for Christmas day.  I think the worst day was actually Christmas day.  Uggghh.  Hopefully next year will be better.  I don't want to complain but I you can't imagine how depressing it was.  I didn't get sick because I was the only one who got the flu shot.  I can guarantee that EVERYONE will be getting the flu shot this year and every year from now on.  

Enjoy the rest of the holiday season and have a Happy New Year!!  Next up will be my OTHER new camera!!  Didn't know I had another one, did you?  I've lost count of how many cameras I have now, but that's a good problem, right?  :)

A Little Happiness in the Day Goes a Long Way...

Today has been a little bit of a rough day.  My oldest daughter busted her mouth and nose, chipped her front tooth, and knocked her two front teeth loose.  I won't tell you how she did it, because you won't believe me.  My youngest shattered a glass snowglobe which strewed very tiny pieces of glass shards all over the living room carpet, all wet and glittery and SHARP!  In the middle of all this the HVAC guy comes to give us a quote for a new heat pump system for our house.  Ugghhh!  (Oh yeah, did I tell you that our heat pump went out?  Don't worry, it's working, but it's hanging by a thread.)  Soooooo, in the middle of this very crazy day (during nap time), what do I do de-stress?  I make an owl ornament and read my new most favorite magazine in the whole wide world: Country Living British Edition!  I found this lovely and perfect magazine at our local grocery store, of all places!  I was elated when I saw it!  I've posted a few pictures of it so you can start drooling and go buy yourself one too.  No, I don't work for the sales department of Country Living Magazine, I just love it that much.  So much inspiration!  I could die!

Here's my owlie.  I think I've decided to name him Oliver.  I saw so many cute felt owls and mushrooms that other people have made on Flickr.  I got inspired to come up with one of my own.  :)

Just look at these pictures and try not to drool...  

I LOVE the heart appliqué pillow on the bench below...

 ...drooling...

Our day did not start out so bad.  I made my first gluten-free blueberry muffins this morning and they were delish!  In case I haven't said before, I have a gluten sensitivity.  Even my husband (who is completely against "weird food") liked them!  My girls gobbled them up and I was relieved to have something other than yogurt and corn chex for breakfast.  YUM!

Yes, it's as good as it looks!

Hope you are having a joyful Christmas season...  :)

Free Colonial Glitterhouse Pattern...

Ok, so here it is!  My pattern for my colonial style glitterhouse!

It's a little rough but I tried to make all the measurements perfect.  The lines do go to the edge of the paper, so you might have to fill that part in after you print it out if your printer won't print all the way to the edge.  Here are the instructions:

1. Cut out all the pieces from chipboard with an exacto knife and a sturdy ruler

2. Score the folds with the exacto knife (you are only cutting halfway through)

3. Fold along the folds and glue it together with white craft glue, using the tabs.

4. Give the whole house a coating of some kind of primer or sealer.  I used wood sealer found at my craft store. (This step keeps the house from bowing when you paint it.)  Let it dry.

5. Choose your colors and paint her up!  Let it dry.

6. Use a glue for glitter and cover one section at a time.  Shake fine glitter over each section until you've done the whole house.  Let it dry.

7. Cut out several squares of chipboard that are bigger than the windows.  Paint them yellow, add glue to the edges, and place them inside the house gluing them to the backs of the windows.

8. Make wreaths out of green pipe cleaners and tiny ribbon.  Hot glue them together and then onto the house. Your done!

Here is the pattern for the house: Free Colonial Glitterhouse Pattern

I would LOVE to see the houses you make from my pattern!  Send me pictures!

Enjoy!

The Glitterhouses Are Finished!!

This morning we woke up to snow!  I couldn't believe it!  The first of December welcomes us with a beautiful snow shower.  Actually, it's still snowing now almost two hours later!  My oldest wanted to go outside immediately, but she hadn't had breakfast yet and I was/am having a hard time moving due to waking up with a pinched nerve in my back.  Ugghh.  I hope it gets better fast because I am supposed to have an afternoon out with my sister-in-law of which I have been really looking forward to.  Driving in the snow and not being able to turn my head is probably not a great combination.  Pray for me!

The day after Thanksgiving I frantically finished the glitterhouses to get them up right in time for the Christmas season.  I even bought some of the finishing detail supplies on Black Friday at great prices!  So here is the finished display complete with tissue paper snowflakes!  Kinda pretty, huh?  I am very pleased with how it turned out.  I tried putting lights under the fake snow, but we only have LED lights and they looked too "pointy" under the snow, so I took them out.  I might just drape a string of lights along the edge of the mantle.

The houses are sitting at random heights on books positioned under the fake snow.  I pulled up the back of the snow behind the houses to make it look like they are nestled on the side a mountain.

I bought the bottle brush trees at Michael's Crafts in the christmas village section.  On top of the whole scene I sprinkled some glittery snow, although it doesn't really stand out that much. 

I made the wreaths from pipe cleaners and little bows I made from tiny wired ribbon.  It's all put together with a hot glue gun.  Here is the template I used for the church:  Template #1

Here is the template I used for this house:  Template #2

Here is the template I used for this house:  Template #3 (bay window version)

This house is my own design.  I actually do have the template that I can scan in, so if you are interested in it just let me know either through email or in the comments.  I tried to make it more of a colonial design.  

I am very excited about my christmas village!  It turned out better than I had expected!

Glitterhouse progress...

So here are my first two finished glitterhouses!  Two down, three to go.  I am so proud of them.  They are taking a lot more work than I had originally thought but I am really enjoying making them!  My husband says they don't look like they are made of cardboard at all.  It took me forever to decide on the colors I wanted and even after I chose them I wasn't sure I liked it.  Now I am convinced it will look pretty good.  I settled on a vintage Christmas color scheme of pale pink, magenta pink, light teal, medium grey, white, and buttercream.  The other three should be done soon and all will be ready to adorn my mantle with vintage Christmas awesomeness!  (As soon as Thanksgiving is over, of course.)  ;)

Happy Halloween 2010...

We took the girls out trick or treating this evening.  We had the best time!  I'm tempted to say that I had more fun than anyone, but I'm not sure that's true.  They looked so incredibly adorable I just wanted to keep giving them hugs and taking pictures.  Katie was a fairy princess and Ava was a butterfly.  The very first house we went to Ava got a piece of candy and I'm not kidding when I say that it took us about 15 minutes to get to the next house.  She was so thrilled that someone just gave her a piece of candy all she wanted to do was eat it.  And eat it she did.  She actually set down her bucket and kept walking without it.  Who needs to carry around this thing if you can just eat the candy as it's given to you?  Haha!  Katie wanted to get to as many houses as she could and fill up her pumpkin to its eyeballs.

We had a wonderful Halloween evening!