A Few Favorite Blue Lily Photos

www.bluelilyphotography.com

"Photography was once described as painting with light."

Happy Thanksgiving

If the only prayer you ever say

in your entire life is thank you,

it will be enough.

-- Meister Eckhard

Happy Thanksgiving!

PS Photo by Blue Lily Photography....more to come soon!

Lovely Owls

Now that I have every other day off from work, I spend a lot of time with Little Miss. Lately, she is really into "Arts N' Crafts"(as she refers to it). Yes, finally, someone to share in Mommy's fun; I really couldn't be more excited about it. Every now and then E will sit and do a craft, but he would much rather run around the house and make weapons out of whatever he can find or play video games...yuck! Not us girls; Little Miss and I can sit all day and create! The other day we cleaned out my craft closet and she created on the floor in the middle of the chaos.

I found these wooden owl puppets from last year, we colored them with markers and then added feathers. It was a quick, fun project for both of us! I think they turned out Lovely....

Speaking of Lovely, once again, I'm linking up with Heather at Blessed Little Nest for Life Made Lovely Mondays. Go check it out!

“Creativity is inventing, experimenting, growing, taking risks, breaking rules, making mistakes, and having fun.”

— Mary Lou Cook

Gift Tags

I'm not big on giving birthday cards to kids. They're so expensive now and what kid really wants to read and open a card, unless you send it in the mail? Sorry, but it's true. Lately, I've been creating tags using the theme of the party. This is really quick and easy to do using Picasa's collage feature.

1. Search for images on Google.
2. Import the images into Picasa.
3. Click on the image and choose collage.
4. Choose size; I generally do a 4 x 6, but smaller would be the usual size of a tag.
5. Choose a background color
6. Add text.
7. Print .
8. Adhere to some cardstock and add a ribbon to tie onto the package.

For more detailed directions on how to use the collage feature in Picasa, check out this post.

Here are some of the recent "tags" I created in Picasa.

You can make them simple (if you're in a hurry).

Or if you can add more detail.

They are really great with cardstock and ribbon, but, of course, I failed to take a picture of the finished product...sorry! Kids love to see their party theme on their birthday package, especially when it's personalized.

Vroooom...

That's how I feel about this week and really about life in general. It's just speeding by while I try to grasp it tightly and enjoy the moments. It doesn't help when Christmas music starts being played the day after Halloween. Wednesday will be mine and Victor's 14th wedding anniversary. Are you kidding me??? 14 years! In ten more years, I'll have been with him longer than I was without him. CRAZY!


I think it's been almost a week since I picked up my camera; that's pretty much unheard of around here! I better try to make up for that today.

Today we are putting the finishing touches on our Operation Christmas Child boxes and seeing just how much we can really stuff into a shoe box...you'd be surprised. I think we'll deliver them either later today or tomorrow. The kids still have to make cards to put inside.


And since I was on the subject of rushing life...why not get in the holiday spirit by checking out some of last year's Christmas pictures?

Today is National Adoption Day . "National Adoption Day is a national day of celebration of adoptive families and an opportunity for courts to open their doors and finalize the adoptions of children from foster care. Since 2000, more than 30,000 children have had their adoptions finalized on National Adoption Day. This year on November 20, families, adoption advocates, policymakers, judges and volunteers will come together and celebrate adoption in communities large and small all across the nation.and with that being said, I will close this post with a few quotes."(taken from http://www.nationaladoptionday.org/ ) Happy Adoption Day to all those who "officially" become families today!

"The greatest experience, the one which shakes a soul with hopes and fears, the results of which are never ending, and incidentally, the one which pays the biggest dividends, is to be found in the adoption of children."

-Anonymous

Trash Picking...end result

A while back I posted this. I am happy to say, the project is now complete.

After lots of sanding and a few coats of red spray paint, here is the end result.

It was actually E that helped me to come up with the idea to glue cork squares to the side of the desk, because he wanted to be able to hang things on it and of course, I wanted it to look "cute" at the same time...this is the solution.

The key holes and the handles were also covered in the yucky brown paint, I just sanded those down with the sander. I like how the result is a brushed silver look. I also sanded all the edges of the desk, including to the drawers, to make it look older and warn.

Old maps (donated by my mom and dad) sit under the glass top. Yes, the glass top came with the desk!

I put together a quick pencil holder using a frosting container and scrapbook papers. We also lined each drawer with scrapbook paper too...I forgot to photograph those...

Although I am mostly happy with the end result, I do think I would do some things differently next time..the major being that I would use regular latex paint...the shiny red spray paint was difficult to get to look even...

E loves his new big boy desk, although it is mostly a home for his Legos...I cleared them all off to take these photos.

I'm linking up with Heather at Blessed Little Nest for Life Made Lovely Monday Go check out all the great entries.

"Do you think it is only a little thing to possess a house from which lovely things can be seen?"

-Saint Teresa

Happy Saturday!

The weather was beautiful today; Victor (and I for a little while) got rid of most of the leaves. I'm quite certain that we win the record for the most leaves in one yard!

I took the kids to Slater Park the other day for a quick photo op in front of "the doors"...my favorite thing about these photos is the reflection in the windows (and the subjects of course, but that goes without saying).

The kids and I are putting together shoeboxes for Operation Christmas Child. Check out Meg's blog for the link. That's where I was inspired to do something (and use funky colors for my font). Maybe you can do something for this great cause too!

"There is no happiness in having or in getting,

but only in giving."

-Henry Drummond