Our vacation Part #1

I know, it's been about two weeks since we got back from vacation and I still haven't uploaded photos or anything! I tend to be a slacker when it comes to that! So I'll give you an update on our exciting vacation! And photos as well, aren't I such a doll? I won't do our vacation all at once, considering we were out and about for 2 1/2 weeks so this will probably be limited to the first day... since it's a little late.



I doubt this will show up as big as this thing really is!! I made this photo 11 inches by 7 inches so it's huge! And I should be able print it off at walmart or somewhere near that size for a scrapbook, so it works out well! As always, respect my copyright please! If you see any one else using my photos somewhere please do tell me! Trust me, I'm not going to take it easily if I find them elsewhere and I would hate to have to make my blog private.

Anyway, we took our 6 hour journey from the Bremerton, WA area to Athol, Idaho's theme park Silverwood to see what it was all about. It's a fun place! Aldon and I aren't really theme park kind of people... well, except when it came to Disney World but that's a whole other story! We don't really do rides - so we do other things! We each took our turn and went on the carousel with Andrew, he absolutely loved them! I think if he had his way we'd spend all day riding those. As you can see it was fun trying to catch a picture of kiddo and us when we were going by! It looks cool in the one shot with the blur around them though.

We decided to have lunch, considering we were starved. The place is so huge and even with a map we were lost, but managed to find a place to have essentially pizza and a magic show. It was neat to watch the magic show and Andrew loved it as well. Aldon enjoyed it too, but spoiled it knowing how they pulled everything off. LOL.

Silverwood Theme Park has a huge water theme park attached to it which is where we spent most of the day! I think we spent 2 hours at that part before Andrew wanted to stop (mind you, we left at 5 am that morning and he hasn't had a nap at all). I didn't take any photos of this whole time, since I was brave and wore a swimsuit out in public and joined in the water with Andrew. After we got back in our normal clothes we enjoyed some ice cream and I had to snap a shot of Andrew with ice cream all over his face. So cute!

We wanted to make most of our time there, even though we had a 2 hour drive left to accomplish that night, and decided to do the train ride show they had there. Bandits come and "rob" the train and any money they made out with was donated to a charity. It was enjoyable and Andrew thought it was neat.. the bandit was joking when he told Andrew to come along with her, but he totally was going to listen! Imagine the amusement of everyone around us when I had to tell my son that he wasn't going with them!

Afterward we walked around some, let Andrew ride the toddler roller coaster, then let him play on the tree playground there. Around 6 we called it a day, headed out to eat some food, and then drove 2 hours more and stopped at Aldon's brother's place for the night.

Part 2 and most likely 3 to come in the future!

Somewhat "Wordless" Wednesday

This is where we spent August 3rd, in Yellowstone National Park checking out geysers! I wish I got to spend more time there, because we only saw probably 1/16 of the place when we got there! This place truly needs a week of time off to see the whole place. Perhaps we'll chose to take husband's leave next time spending it there? That will be in a while, so you never know! I got sun burnt a ton, but thankfully Andrew and Aldon came out not burned. We had a good time there, aside from not getting to be there as long as we would have liked.

On vacation

If any one wondered why I haven't been around - we've been on vacation and are still enjoying ourselves. We won't be here much longer though, in a few days we go to my husband's family reunion for camping!! I'm nervous seeing as I've never camped in my life. It's been great for us to see family, but in a way I'll be glad when all is done and we're back in our own home.

I started a new blog, for my adventures of becoming a work at home mom. You can see my adventures here: From SAHM to WAHM. If any one else out there is a WAHM or works from home I'd love to know tips or anything else you have to offer. I hope all is doing well!!

Sometimes I love photoshop

As you can imagine with me trying to make designs for Zazzle I have been using and abusing my photoshop program more. Today I've been trying to learn a few simple things and I got to say it's fun!! So I have got to show off what I've done.
First we'll start with the American flag. You can see it in my post before this - it's the flag I used inside the heart. Well I turned it into a pattern overlay in photoshop. Then I made the word love and used the pattern overlay in it, resulting in:

May not too look a lot but it was fun!! Then I learned a different technique on how to change the color of items - so I decided to do it on a photo of my son. I'll show the original and two fun edits:


The original photo above

And the two fun edits!

I know for some photo editors this is, well, boring to say the least. However for me it was rather fun to test his eye colors out!! I know... overkill, right? But sure was fun!!

Where have I been?

I've been working hard on zazzle lately and am sorry I haven't been around much! I know I didn't get to do "closetful of crafts" last Friday because I've been trying to design shirts and other items. I'm trying to treat this like a job and stick to it because it can be rewarding in the end. I've always wanted to try something that has an opportunity to make me a WAHM. Nothing too hard, I set my own hours, but get to do something that brings a steady flow of emergency money for us. We'll possibly be needing that extra money too!! My husband hasn't worked on his B.S. and with about two years and five months until we're civilian ridden I'm thinking any extra money will help him in the end, possibly give us a chance to focus more on his education for a while before having to get back to work. That's my goal in two years time is to be able to have saved enough to support us, especially if the economy is still bad by then. Is it doable? Perhaps. I was given responses by some others and if I stick to it I possibly can be able to.

So exactly what have I been doing? Well here's my two store's latest creations:
This I actually created last night - took less than an hour which was good since I got the idea at midnight and couldn't sleep until it was done. That can be found (along with others) at A Little Bit of Fun.


This one (and other awareness) can be found at Tshirts for a Cause.

Obviously I'm no where done on either store front! I've been at it less than a week so it's to be expected. I still have a lot to add and am creating a few other stores in the next couple weeks. I'll be on hiatus for a couple weeks soon, though!! Family reunion so nothing will be done. I might automatically set things to be posted on certain dates, but don't expect too much!!

Memories in Photos Wednesday

It's always funny looking back at photos of my son. This one was when he was 7 months old. You know how some children are very messy when they eat? My son was never really like that for the longest time, so I decided to make him messy instead. I think his expression is appropriate - he was probably questioning me and my parenting. "Why did you slime baby food on my nose, mom?" No matter what was on his face he still looked so adorable! Good times.

If you're wondering where I've been - I have one word... Zazzle. I've been trying my hand in designing photos over there to upload, which has been nice. It's a challenge in a way but has been nice. Currently working on mostly breast cancer awareness, but have branched off to male breast cancer too. I'm no where near started nor no where near done with all my ideas since I have over 200 different ideas I want to create. If you want to check it out Tshirts for a cause is where you'll find it at. Although it is more then Tshirts, kind of didn't chose my username as good as I should have. Oh well :)

I got myself a new blog name (had to spell it lifeorsumthing like it on the blog site) but when I get things transferred I'll start the process of hopefully getting all my followers over there. That's kind of up to all my followers though! We'll see how it goes. I might wait until after my vacation in July in case.

Closetful of Crafts Friday

I apologize I failed at crafts today, however I started using photoshop to do different designs for T-shirts. I'll talk about it more tomorrow, when I'm coherent as I'm a tad hot and tired right now.

Using my creative side, a different way...

I was trying my hand at micro-stock, which unless you're really serious about you make chump change. I didn't have many pictures up, mostly because a good handful of what I put up each time was declined. That never bothered me... or bothered me when I did sell a picture it was only worth $0.25 to me. Until two days ago. We were going out to look for a computer mouse for my husband and I saw a mouse-pad. This mouse-pad had a photo I saw from a ladies micro-stock page that she sold off. And it struck me... this gal probably made maybe $0.25 to $5.00 at max for a photo that some one else used for a mouse-pad that made $8.00 a pop. So it made me really wonder, is my photos worth only $0.25? Is my time worth that? Not really...

So I think I've come set on the fact all micro-stock sites I have joined will be deleted and closed down ASAP. Actually I don't think, I know that's what will happen. I'm thinking of trying to join up with Cafe press or Zazzle and use my creative juices there to use some of my photos and also different sayings that I've come up with on T-shirts and different items. I know they'll be making money off me, but at least it will be me using my photos instead of someone else. At least this way I can do things how I want to, when I want to, and not be so stressed about how my photography is critiqued (getting a tad sick of the "too light, too dark, has some noise, something isn't in focus" aspect of it all. I feel more positive this is the direction for me. Will I make enough to consider it a job? Highly doubtful... but I will settle for $100 extra a month to cover the costs of what I've bought with all my equipment. But more would never hurt. So let the creative juices flow!

Memories in Photos Wednesday

On 2-28-2010 our family went to Poulsbo, WA to check out the marine science center. It's always neat to see marine life closer - and this was our chance to. The center was definitely not big, but had an area where you could feel marine life (like starfishes) and a lot of other neat things that roam in the ocean. We went into the back where children could color and there was this tank. It had two clown-fish, which looked similar to Marlin and Nemo in "Finding Nemo". There was also a fish that looked like Dory and another fish that looked like the one that said "Bubbles! Bubbles!" I couldn't get pictures of the other two, but was able to take some lovely shots of the clown-fish. They kept hiding in the anemone or behind it but it was a great chance to see how well I could take pictures of fish, as well as neat to observe them.

Doing a poll

I decided to do a poll with different choices of headers. You can choose multiple ones you like. I'm actually kind of leaning towards "Life, or something like it." It's kind of cute and I've never heard someone use it often. So, what does everyone think? I'd like to make a permanent change to the header. As for a change of blogger address? Not sure, because I'd lose all the followers I have. I'm considering making a new blog with the name used, but don't think all the followers will find me. I guess I'll deal with that in the future.

What should my header be?

Closetful of Crafts Friday

I've been interested in trying to figure out how to crochet cute flowers after *kimw* showed off the "crochet candy" she makes! They're awesome. So I decided to search the internet for patterns and started testing them out this week. I'll probably show off the ones I did test after I complete more, but wanted to post my own "tutorial". After looking at this one person's pattern, what she did didn't make sense to me! It just wouldn't work. So I decided to make my own tiny flowers. So I apologize, this is my first time giving a tutorial, no less my first time making my own version of something, and also apologize for giving my camera to my husband (had to edit the photos afterward, couldn't get the darkness right). Oh, should I apologize that about my non-manicured hands, too? LOL. Any way, show/tell me your results.

Chain 6
Join with a slip stitch to beginning chain to form a loop.
Chain 3, then do 2 triple crochets into the loop, followed by a single crochet into the loop. Do this a total of four times. The fifth petal you'll chain three, followed by the two triple crochets into the loop and slip stitch it to the bottom (the picture below shows the back, where I slip stitched it not into the next petal, but using one of the loops chains), then pull until tight and cut it apart.


So... how did I do? I hope everyone took into consideration the last time I tried to crochet was probably 3 years ago, and even then I was a beginner!

Blog Hopping, cont. & help requested

I was a little disappointed in Tuesdays blog hop, I thought I'd get more then two people following me. But, live and move on. I hope to find more people that love my blog and find more blogs I love following. I've found some ones I love (the more creative the better) which is awesome. We'll see what this Friday brings. I will be following those who follow me in and promise I'm going through all those blog hops to find people's blogs that I love! I think I'll limit it to doing the Friday blog hops, so that way Tuesday's will be spent focusing on other things.

I just decided to change my blogger title - I'm still searching for one that is "me". Originally I was "The Good Stuff", but wonder if people didn't like it? Either way, as you can tell I'm trying on "Live. Laugh. Love." but has that been used too much by others? What do people think? If any one can help me figure out a title that covers crafts, photography, and family life I'd appreciate it!

Memories in Photos Wednesday

Well, there's nothing like a story attached to this photo. Just a beautiful son that I decided to take a picture of in black & white. When he was a baby I swear it was so much easier to get photos of him! Nowadays he gives me evil faces when I try getting pictures, or I have to tell him 100 times to look at the camera and stop the cheesy grin. LOL. Got to love that little guy.

Another old post became new *Added

The blog post Been Busy... has made it's appearance again. Everything has been watermarked and I added a lot of new photos to it! The Llama is one of them!

It's amazing - the first weekend I had the camera I swear I had my best photos. Doesn't that figure? I'm still learning my camera and haven't taken the time to sit down and read some of the books I got. I'm always the type that rather experiment first, read later. LOL. Perhaps when we decide to visit family next week I'll take the books with.

A lot of time has passed I decided to add some old pictures to. The blog was made in January 2006, a few weeks before I had Andrew. So now you get to see some photos never before posted here - a picture of me at 38 weeks (scary), an ultrasound done when I was 30ish weeks pregnant, and some nursery photos!

Tuesday Tagalong & Follow Me Back

Figured I'd do it again!! Found some nice blogs in the process last week. How to see many followers, just like me! I promise to add every one who is following me - I'm just a bit behind in life. Why does it seem like the hours pass me by?

Of course I'll be also searching the blogs on their site to see what I like best!! I *love* when I find crafty souls like me. It's awesome :)

Octopus Photo Question!

I had Stephanie from Ten Talents ask me a question in one of the comments [about my banner pictures] so I figured I'd answer that to whoever else wanted to know!!

Stephanie: You've got a lot of great pics on here! Where did you take the one of the octopus? Did you actually take that yourself?

A. Yes I did take that photo. I haven't posted any photos that I don't own and didn't take in any of my blog posts or in my header. I wanted this blog to represent my life lately - so the only way to do that is to use only pictures I've taken. As for the Octopus picture - I'm giving you the chance to look closer!! It was actually taken in the Seattle Aquarium!! [You can see the reflection of my son's orange jacket and his fingers in the left corner of the photo]. Eventually I'll get the one blog post back up that had those photos in it. It's amazing what you can do with a camera sometimes, isn't it? And that was shockingly one the first weekends with my new camera!! Honestly some of these pictures came from pure luck, trust me on that!

Edited: I forgot I had two octopus pictures up, I apologize! Not from the same location! This one was taken in Poulsbo, WA - they have a marine science center there and that's where this photo was taken at.

If any one has questions they have been wondering, feel free to ask!

Closetful of Crafts Friday?

I don't think I'll be able keep up with this every Friday, but we'll see. This is actually about what I did yesterday - my first attempt at wire jewelry. Although my husband says it's good, what I did wasn't any where close!! I'll admit, what should I expect? I am just a beginner, no less a wire jewelry virgin, and tried something that was labeled as being intermediate. But it was the only one I could think of doing! And had the least amount of things you used.

This is what the picture showed I should make it look similar to, aside from my colors I used:
As shown in Creative Wire Jewelry by Kathy Peterson Page 40 (Giving credit where credit is due).


Well, this is what I came up with..
I swear I hear silent chuckles. First attempt? Not bad... but I do have some complaints on what she tells you to do! She says to use 20 gauge wiring. Well her picture and mine don't look like the same wiring! Mine is 20 gauge - the picture looks more like the 16 gauge wiring I have! Another complaint is she tells you to use a metal mandrel (the exact one I have) and you make one long coil around it that's wrist size and add 1/2 inch for ease. Well... I did what was said. I did a 7 inch wrap (all the mandrel could hold) which was 1/2 inch more than my 6 1/2 inch wrist. This won't fit it!! She didn't take in for the fact some of us have big hands so fitting it into something, no less wire, is kind of tough. If this fits someone with a 5 inch wrist I'd be shocked. So craft failure yesterday. Not all on my part though.. "decent" for a beginner, though.. right?

Added: I decided to actually edit it a bit again in attempts to make it fit my hand. I decided to pull lightly on the part that makes the wrist band to make it a little bigger. Then I decided to put one more wire piece through it that was longer, curl the sides and then connect them together. By making the one wire piece that went through longer it also allowed for more room.
Here it is now:

I can at least roll it onto my wrist - but of couse it means it's very wiggly and won't stay still. I think I'll be sticking to earrings, rings, bracelets that have a latch, and necklaces!

So which header do you like?

I've been having fun lately and changed my header around twice today in photoshop. What does every one think? They're small versions, so you'll have to click on the photo to see the bigger view. Just to compare:
This was the original I had on for a month or so now:
Here's the one that lasted all but a few hours today:
And the one you see before you know, the one I'm 100% sure I'll keep:

"Blog Hopping"

Not quite Friday - but getting a head start blog hopping! I'll probably back off a little next week, never knew there was so many ways to show off your blog.. no less by blog hopping. So here's Fridays I've signed up to:


Want to promise those who have hopped on over to my site and posted I'll be checking you out soon! I'm just trying to find a balance in my life.

Old posts become new again!

I'm getting my old blogs up slowly!! Got them watermarked (and re-sized for faster uploading times for me) and even added more photos then they had before!



Adventures is up. I also added a new photo of a deer that wasn't on the blog before. The picture to the side is a preview of one of the photos that's on that blog. Some fun memories!! I love looking back over them.



More Memories and you could see the preview on the side!! I took some fun shots of seagulls (out of hundreds only liked 4!!) Used to show two photos, now has my "best" four!



Some More Adventures has quite a bit of photos! I had one photo for each adventure day we had, but decided to add quite a few more!!

I have one more left to put back up online, but want a break! So it will have to wait. Hope you enjoy!

Wanted to add once Linkthis' support helps me, I should be able to show old posts that you might like to see. Neat thing they have!! Hope it gets up and working for me soon. Guess that's what I get for customizing my blog!