a little of what I've been up to.

I am so sorry for this poor neglected blog. I was hoping to roll out a new look and concept for this blog this summer, but it seems time is not on my side these days.

If only I didn't have so many things I wanted to do all the time.

I've been enjoying taking on more photography for friends and family. See here for more of that.

I've been busy with house projects... taking down a big rock wall, putting new stuff up, rearranging, redecorating, and revamping just about everything else (my office, guest bedroom, boys room, and living room).

Oh yeah, and I've been cooking and cleaning, running (hooray!), playing with my boys, and having fun with friends and church responsibilities.

Also, my husband and I have been working towards filling a little booth at a local craft boutique. He is selling his hand-crafted (wood-turned) oil viles and pens. I am selling custom prints. Here are some pictures:

If I can get time to be on my side for a little bit I am hoping to fill my etsy shop up with custom prints (to print at home, which means they will be cheap- yay!), and roll out a new website that combines my photography and design. If I keep on working towards it it will eventually all come together right?! Here's to progress!!!

happy fourth

Hope you are all having a festive fourth:) We are having a pretty low-key holiday around here since we just got back from a fun weekend trip to Park City. These are some things I want to incorporate into next years festivities:

Does anybody do it up quite like the folks from hostess?

I love the simple and fun napkin rings!

Love the above pinwheels.

And I must try these adorable and delectable-looking cheesecake shots!

And no fourth for me is quite complete without sparklers! Wanna learn how to make cool photos with sparklers, or just take better photos of fireworks? I linked to something similar last year, but it's always good to have a refresher... click here for a great firework photo tutorial or here.

Wanna learn another fun photo trick? I followed this tutorial to create the below images from this last weekend! Try it!! It's easier than you think:)

a few things...

Things are a brewing over here. My husband will most likely be quitting his second job and I am going to attempt to start my own photography and design business!! Over the next few months I plan to work on getting my photography and design portfolio posted to a new blog, combine this blog with my photography blog in a big redesign and hopefully will be posting regularly... really regularly, unless my business takes off soooo fast that I can't keep up with a blog. Ha! That probably won't happen. So... bare with me and I'll keep you posted. Thanks so much to all of you who check this blog occasionally and even better, SUBSCRIBE (bless you :) )!!

Here's a fun tip in the meantime. Are you a budding photographer? Or are you just getting into photography to take better pictures of loved ones? I have to tell you about the great deals I found this week so you can be on the lookout for similar deals in your area!! Tis' the season for garage-saling ;) I picked this up at a garage sale this last week for $45 (retail $150)!!

Then during a DI run I found this for $5!!! It's an old screen projector:)

I thought back to a product I had seen while browsing around like it here that was used for baby backgdrops, which retailed for $200!!

I love my $5 version!! It is COMPLETELY adjustable and collapses down so that it is oh-so-easy to transport.

I am still on the lookout now for a bigger background/backdrop stand for cheap somehow. I made one about two years ago out of PVC pipe, but I wasn't very happy with how it worked. It wasn't very strong and was a bit of a headache. Until then though I am excited about the above finds and have lots to learn about studio lighting:)

m.i.a.

Did you all think I had dropped off the face of the planet? Truth be told, my husband got a second job and I have had very little free time as of late. The free time I do have is generally spent playing with my boys, spring cleaning, cooking, catching up on my google reader, tending to church related stuff, reading up on how to be a better mom, and the likes. I have found time to fit in some projects, but haven't found the motivation to blog about them as of yet.

Here are a few things though...

I took some senior pics the other week for a cute girl and posted them on my photo blog here:

I designed some announcements for a friend of mine who is adopting:

I made this quiet activity for my boys to play with at church:

It works great! I got the artwork here, printed it all out on magnetic printer paper, cut it out and stuck it all in one of these tins I got from Michael's using a 40% off coupon. I am thinking of making some more magnet sets- the possibilities are endless! Did you know that most kid movies and shows have awesome websites with free printable characters?! Check out this cool magnet set too!!! So much fun:)

I also thought of a cool way to use all those round little containers that come in the tins I bought:

(sorry for the not-so-hot photo above, but I didn't want to wait to post any longer)

I came up with this idea after my little boy came home from preschool with the letters of his name written on the tops of milk carton lids... I decided to make the whole alphabet and have plans to make numbers also. I simply printed out a well spaced alphabet on printable sticker paper, cut each letter out with a circle punch I had (3/4"), and stuck them onto the cute little containers. Uppercase on top of the clear lid, and lower case inside. We have had a lot of fun making up words with them! With numbers I plan to put numbers on top and the corresponding number of dots on the inside. What a fun learning tool for getting him ready for kindergarten, right?!

Anyway, those are just a few of the things that I have been up to. Hopefully more fun posts of fun summer ideas, and activities are on the way. We are hoping to get to some remodeling done in our home this summer too, so I will also try to share any tips I learn with you all:) TTFN!!

my button.

Just a note to anyone who subscribes to, checks in on occasionally, or even links to this blog through theirs. First of all- THANK YOU!! Second of all- sorry that so many of you have been taken to a random shoe website lately. Because I was low on money and lazy I didn't renew my domain name and web-hosting account for the website I created awhile back. I still have my fresh designs blog (obviously I suppose:), but my website is no longer and someone else bought my domain name (darn it!!!). So if you have been directed to a shoe website by clicking on my fresh designs button, I apologize (and am so glad it isn't anything worse!).

I have updated my buttons now and if you happen to display a button of mine (again, THANK YOU!!!!!!), if you could update the html to read 'freshdesignsstudio.blogspot.com' rather than 'freshdesignsstudio.com' I would REALLY appreciate it. Or just do this- go to edit my button, erase what's there, and copy this:

<a href="http://www.freshdesignsstudio.blogspot.com">

<img src="http://i191.photobucket.com/albums/z57/Kaelars/button.png"/></a>

Then click save and it should be fixed! So sorry for the hassle!!! I've learned my lesson on being lazy with domain names!! Hope this makes sense! Please let me know if you are still confused and/or need help updating buttons and I will get back to you asap. Thanks again!!!!

organizing 2011

Remember this post on organizing jewelry? I'm guessing no, but I want to update it a little. We've moved from an apartment to our first home in the last year and I've found a better way to store my earrings and jewelry and thought I would share.

I store my earrings in this now and LOVE it:

The rest of my jewelry now goes in a standing mirror jewelry armoire. You can see a teeny bit of it in the picture below.

Another storage solution I came up with and love (I think I came up with it... maybe my sister gave me the idea... but I don't think I have seen it anywhere) is this one for some of my hair stuff:

The upper two pictures are mainly what I wanted to show you- just two old oatmeal containers store all my headbands (I have a lot I know). What a great way to store headbands etc. though, right?! You could make them a lot more visually appealing by modge-podging some pretty paper on them I'm sure, but I just never seem to get around to it. I'm not that motivated because nobody ever sees them really but me.

The lower two pictures I thought I would show you because that is where I store all my getting ready stuff and I get ready there each morning. We only have one bathroom in this little home of ours for now, so it comes in pretty handy. It's just a sofa table (hand-me-down) we painted, then put shoe storage shelves (garage sale find) underneath it for storage. I used fabric from curtains I got at a garage sale (10 for $10!!) and tailor-made them to cover up my stuff down there. I made side panels for the bottom too, but put them on after I took this picture.

Oh, and the mirror above it? I got it for $1 at a yard sale and painted it to match too:) I love me some good deals!!

Hope these have inspired you in some small way...

I hesitate to post house pics, because my house is never how I want it really, but I've decided recently to be proud of what I have done and be okay that it is all a works in progress. So expect to see more house pics and let me know what you think.

isn't he cute?!

This was my first attempt at a glove-stuffed animal. I made a couple of mistakes but all in all I thought he turned out pretty cute!

I got the gloves on clearance for $2 and everything else I had around the house. I sewed his eyes with embroidery thread and I made his mane out of scrap felt. I realized in posting these pics that he still needs a tail. I think I will braid him a tail out of yarn and sew it on.

I also think he needs a little heart sewn on to his chest. Then I can give him to my 18 month old and see if he likes him enough to make more to add to my little glove-aminal family!

i know.

I am not as attentive to this blog as I should be. But life... well you know. It just keeps on rolling and sometimes this blog suffers because of it. I am sorry for that. But I will try to make it up to you.

That being said, I have an announcement to make. I suppose it isn't that big of a deal, but I have decided to make 2011 my year of sewing! And I plan to share what I do on here. I've got house projects to sew and I've got toys to make (I've decided next year 70% of my boys toys will be homemade- 100% of their toys from ME and I figure Santa can do what he wants for the other 30%).

Here are some of the toys that I hope to create this year:

Lots of sock and glove stuffed animals kinda like these from here.

-play dough like this.

-felt story board stories like this.

-a boy doll like using this pattern.

-felt food like this.

-feed the monster toss game kind of like this.

-felt fishing set like this.

-house or farm pack and go set like this.

-dress up clothes, pajamas, robe, hooded towel, quilt... the list goes ON... we'll see what I can get to:)

As far as other projects go, I have pillows to sew, cushions to recover, clothes to alter. Stay tuned! (And please be patient- I will try to put other fun seasonal and holiday info, projects, recipes, and anything else I find interesting on here to share also:) )