Monday, December 3, 2012

Sweet Treats and Children :)

It's been awhile since I've done a post and I apologize. Times are crazy with the holidays and we are still in the process of remodeling . That will be a whole post for another day. Tonight I want to post about a new treat I made and a photo shoot I had a few weeks ago.

I find so many things on Pinterest that I want to make that I just can't make up my mind which to do first. I've been working on making Christmas presents and wanted to include a yummy treat. After debating over tons of options I decided to make Cinnamon Almonds. Below is a link to the original post, but I have included the instructions as well.

http://detrimentalbeauty.com//?s=almonds&search=Go

Crock Pot Cinnamon Almonds

1 1/2 C. Sugar
1 1/2 C. Brown Sugar
3 Tbsp. Cinnamon
1/8 tsp. Salt
1 Egg White
2 tsp. vanilla
3 Cups Almonds
1/4 C. Water

 
In a medium sized bowl, mix together sugars, cinnamon, and salt. Set aside. In another medium sized bowl, whisk the egg white and vanilla until it’s a little frothy. Add almonds. Make sure the almonds are thoroughly coated in the egg white mixture. Add cinnamon mixture to the almonds and toss until coated.

Thoroughly spray with Pam, or whatever, the stoneware of your large crock pot (mine is a 4 quart). Add the divine mixture of almonds and sugars to the crock pot and turn it to low.


Cook ( with the lid on) 3-4 hours stirring every 20 minutes (I only did 3 hours). In the last hour, add the 1/4 C. of water and stir well. This ensures a crunchy yummy coating. (*make sure after you’ve added the water that you continue to cook the nuts for another 45min to an hour.)

 
You have to stir really well, especially as it gets later in the cooking process.

Line a baking sheet with parchment and spread the almonds flat to cool. The almonds will be sticky at this point, so make sure you separate them a little and have no large mounds.

 
I separated every almond so they wouldn't clump together. I had quite a bit of the sugar mixture left over when I was done but I think they turned out perfect! Let them cool completely before you put them in a container.

ENJOY!

Store in an airtight container

 And now on to the sweet children portion of my post. A few weeks ago I had a session with the children of a girl I work with. I just couldn't get over the red jacket she had Elizabeth in. The picture below is my most favorite and will probably end up framed on my wall.


 
Shawn reaching out to his sister

 
I love how the edit of this picture of Elizabeth turned out.


I hope everyone had a great day and that you are all enjoying this weather we are having!

Monday, November 19, 2012

Sisters

This past weekend I had the pleasure of photographing three sisters, who happen to be my cousins. It was a beautiful day and we got some amazing pictures. Here are some of my favorites :)








 
I hope every had a great weekend!

Thursday, November 15, 2012

Stacy and Matt's Wedding

A few weekends ago, my very good friend Stacy got married Matt. It was nice to finally be a guest at a wedding so I could really enjoy the joining of these two special people in marriage. Here are a few of my photos from the night. I wish I could have brought my big camera but it was more about being a guest than a photographer :)













 
Mother and Daughter



 
Hope everyone had a great day!!!!

Sunday, November 4, 2012

Happy Halloween :) a little late




So I'm a little behind and I apologize.  I've been working on photo shoots and we have started to remodel our house. Last weekend we went and visited my dad up north. Being that it was Halloween weekend we made sure we had time to carve some pumpkins. Below are some pictures of our pumpkin carving adventures.


Bruce with all the pumpkins


















Bruce and Rockie lounging in the chair.

Miss Aayla sitting pretty while she waits for me to kick her ball:)

                             
This was something I had never seen before. There was a ring around the moon. Apparently that means a storm is coming.

Hope everyone had a safe and fun Halloween!!!!

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Sara and Matt ~ Engagement Session

This evening I had the pleasure of photographing a friend and her fiancĂ©. With daylight quickly fading away we had to move quickly! Here are a few of my favorites from tonight's session.







Thursday, October 18, 2012

Birthday Sign

Once again I spent another night working on a Pinterest project. I've always had trouble remembering peoples birthdays so when I saw this idea I thought it would be perfect. I have changed it from the one I saw online so I will give you my instructions in case you want to make one of your own :)
 
I want to first say that I am a big believer of reusing old things. The wood I used for this project came from an old outhouse building that is on my dads property. He's been wanting to take it down so this was the perfect opportunity to use some of the old wood. The home that this outhouse belongs to has been standing for over 100 years.
 
 
Now that I have some of the boards home, I've been wanting to start to make craft projects with them. So I started by picking one board that didn't have a crack in it. This wood is quite brittle so I needed to be very careful not to break the board in half.
 
 
The next step was to paint square and round pieces of wood that I purchased from Wal-Mart in the wood craft aisle. I wanted to make sure they would be dry by the time I needed to attach them. These pieces will used to write the names and dates on.
 
 
I took my letters that spelled birthdays and laid them out so I knew what size to cut my board down to.
 
 
Once I had it cut I could start to trace all my letters. I used a pencil and if you are going to try this project I wouldn't recommend using a mechanical pencil...the lead kept breaking.
 
 
After everything was stenciled I could start hand painting all the letters.
 
 
 
Now when I first started this project I didn't realize that my board wasn't going to be big enough to fit the word birthdays and the letters for each month so I had to improvise. I used another board and cut it the same size so I could put it behind the original board which would give me enough room.
 
 
 I used doubled sided tape to attach the two pieces together until I can get to the store to buy wood glue.
 
 
Now that I have a place for the first letter of each month I used hot glue to apply each letter to the board. I'm missing the first J for January so please forgive me.
 
I wanted these letters to be a different color so I added a layer of blue paint once they were attached.
 
 
Ok, so now that all the letters are in place and glued down it's time to start adding birthdays. I purchased eye screws to connect each of the wood pieces to each other.
 
 
 I drilled tiny holes to get each screw started on the main board.
 
 
Once the main screw was in place I added the first birthday.
 
 
 This next step is a little tricky and I might change this up the next time I make one of these. I took a small piece of double sided foam and squished the screw part into it and then put hot glue on top of that.
 
 
I kept repeating this with all of the birthday discs until they were all done. Some of them you will have to separate the eye so you can put it through the ring.
 
The last part is writing all the birthday dates and names. I have terrible handwriting so I might redo these but they are growing on me.
 
 
Here is the project almost complete. I still have pieces of wood that are drying but once I'm done I'll post another picture of it completed.
 
 
I hope everyone had a great day and that you are enjoying reading my blog :)