A 'Retro Kinda' Girls Bowling Birthday Party

Big sis just turned 5- WOW how time flies!!!  She requested a bowling birthday party which was GREAT since her party is in February and we froze our behinds off last year trying to do a Superhero Obstacle course outside.  Here are a few shots from the shin-dig :)

Colors: teal and a soft pinkish red
Cupcakes: Strawberry with double choclate chunck brownie mix on the bottom half, topped off with a teal cream cheese frosting= YUM!
Favors: Cute little Ice Cream Sundae bubbles from Dollar Tree
Invitations and Party Decor: Christy's Customs (yours truly!)

Thanks for stopping in to take a peak!

A Printable Subway Art {With Chevron Option!} for St. Patrick's Day

My partner in crime has a little thing for St. Patty's Day... in fact, she sends out cards for St. Patrick's Day instead of Christmas- very cute idea!!  Since I have been playing around in the custom cards and invitations arena, she's letting me put together her card this year {so fun!}.  Her request was subway art {also fun!}.  So I have been playing with just the right St. Patrick's Day subway art, with a little cute, a little sassy, and little bit of those Irish blessings!

Since I already had the subway art created, might as well throw it up on Etsy as a printable, frameable piece, no?

Want one of these for yourself?  Just visit my Etsy shop: www.etsy.com/shop/ChristysCustomsBlog ! I have them with and without the chevron background in 5X7, 8X10 and letter sized (8 1/2X11).

{Ptssss... If you follow me on facebook and send me a private message there, I just may throw one your way for free! Cheers!}

Fancy camera!? Now what? My lessons learned with my DSLR...

When you upgrade from your point an shoot camera to your first DSLR camera, it can be a little intimidating for sure!  There are so many settings.  What do you do with them all!?  Luckily, they all come with an "Auto" mode, right?  But doesn't that defeat the purpose... at least just a little?  When my hubby bought our camera, I wasn't sold on the whole idea.... until I started playing with it.  Now I am addicted!  Now that we have several family and friends upgrading to, I wanted to share a few of my lessons learned along the way.... from a complete amateurs point of view!  Keep in mind, I am no professional :)

Don't be scared of Manual Mode!
I know it seems like a lot of confusing numbers, acronyms, and purposes, but I promise, learning how to shoot in Manual Mode is not all that hard!  Once you stat doing it, it becomes second nature... really!  Here are two guides that I found super helpful:

(1) The blog kevin & amanda has an amazing step by step guide on how to shoot in Manual called, Photography Tutorial: A Quick Guide to Understanding Your DSLR Camera
This guide is so easy to follow and will have you shooting manual in no time!

(2) Totally Rad has this phenomenal {very visual!} guide to help you understand the various manual settings!  Love this as a quick reference guide once you have already learned some of the basics! Get the full size version on their website here: http://www.gettotallyrad.com/blog/your-guide-to-m-mode/

 

Look for the Light- Love the Light!

Taking pictures is all about finding the right light... or the right shade, or the right lighted shade!  You want to try and avoid harsh shadows and once your subject is in the shade, the lighting is consistent.  However, you don't want it to be too dark, you want that sunlight to be close by to give you that great natural light (artificial light is no-bueno apparently?!) without having direct light hitting you.  Some examples of my experimentations with different lights...

In the shade:

 In overcast weather...

 In the "Golden Hour"... the last hour before sunset...

 

 Oops!!  Lighting bummers... notice the harsh lines left by being partially shaded with some direct light!

The Rule of Thirds... Maybe?!
So there is this rule of thirds... it is suppose to help you when composing a picture.  The idea being that you chop the picture into thirds making the focus of your picture at those third marks {which also in effect makes the picture off balance}.  At first I wasn't so sure... but as I started shooting more and looking at more professional shots, I started to like this concept more and more... take a look!

 I kind of like the empty space you get when moving the focus over to that "third" mark, but at the same time my OCD kicks in a little bit wanting to re-center it all!  Yikes!

Bokeh!?!?!  
When you take pictures with you aperture "wide open" you can get this dreamy bokeh effect... meaning lots of blurring before and after your main focus.  It is dreamy and gives your picture that professional feel BUT beware!  If you are shooting with your aperture at f1.8, wide open (for example) it means that it is more likely that what you want to be in focus could very well get blurred into that beautiful bokeh background!  I love shooting with a wide open f, while my hubby just shudders (making it kind of hard to share the camera, lol!).  He wants to make sure everything is sharp and focused which is more difficult to do the more "wide open" you shoot!  Here are some tips from photoble, How to: 7 Quick Tips to Create Bokeh with Your Digital Camera.

Here are some of my attempts on this one, but you may want to refer to some professional shots for this, lol!

Get Inspired!!
The more pictures I take, the more inspiration I want for new styles, compositions, and view points.  I follow many of my favorite professional photographers through facebook for their brilliant eye and ideas.  I am also a self proclaimed Pinterest Junkie!!  I made a board, Memory Making {& Everything Camera!}, so that I can save inspirations, tutorials and all the brilliant ideas I come across!  Get inspired and shoot from there!

Are you an amateur photographer with some great "aha" moments?  I'd love to hear them!

A great teacher gift {A SIMPLE INFINITY SCARF} for an infinite amount of thank yous!

Let me just start out by making a disclaimer.... I am a teacher.  I have been teacher for 10 years now {oh yes, I am to that point where adults run up to me in public yelling, "You were my 6th grade teacher!!"}.  Any-who, with that said, now that I have my own littlens with teachers of their own, I like to try to make teachers' gifts usable, special, and a little unique.  This year my daughter is in preschool and between all of her "teachers" there are 12 usable, special, and unique gifts to come up with AND since I am a teacher as mentioned before, I am on a budget!

So I saw these adorable, soft, cozy infinity scarfs the other day- price tag, $12.  Not too shabby.  In fact, I thought that was a great price... then math kicked in 12 X 12... I am pretty sure I am suppose to know this math fact and it is way to close to $150, which I don't have just lying on the nightstand.  SO my wheels started turning and I thought- how hard could one of these suckers be to make- simple I am sure!  And- another disclaimer- I sew... when I need to, and I don't necessarily know what I am doing.  AND, it was even pretty simple for me.  In fact, I spent 3 hours one morning {while watching a 4 year old and 1 1/2 year old at the same time} and got all 12 done!  And my total: $27!

Basically you need 1 cut yard of fabric for every 2 scarfs.  Since all of our teachers have different personalities, I just went through the sale bin (with an additional 40% off coupon in hand) cuddling with fabrics and since I need one cut yard, I got 6 different fabrics to try to match the different personalities... and let the CUT COUNTER do the cutting- woo-hoo!  {I hate cutting fabric!}  I snapped pictures once I had the kinks worked out to share with you- I hope they help!!

(Click HERE to see this tutorial in Google Drive- you can zoom in to see each step clearly there :)

 So 12 scarfs for just under $30, not to shabby!

I made up these little tags to go with them and had them printed at Costco.  You can download the tag HERE if you are in need!

And there you have it- cute, cheap, cuddley scarves for the teachers- hope they enjoy!!

OH- and added bonus... I got the best Photo bomb ever while trying to get my hubby to snap a few pictures of the scarves... isn't she a cutie!?!  Love this picture :)

A Handprint, Toilet Paper Roll Turkey

This is no new concept... turning a toilet paper roll into a turkey- but I had to share, because of course, they turned out adorable!  Happy Thanksgiving!!

 

A Little Pumpkin Baby Shower- A Cute Fall Theme!

 

When I found out my sis-in-law wanted to have a "Little Pumpkin" themed baby shower, I was thrilled!  How cute is that for a fall baby??  Here are some pictures from the adorable shin-dig!!

The Front Table included lots of pumpkins, some cute belly shots, lots of fall cuttings, a memento box for the parents to be and new baby girl and a few baby name books for fun!  And of course a Little Pumpkin banner!!

 

 The Table Centerpieces were pumpkins with flower arrangements, requested by the mom to be.  I found small vases at Dollar Tree and helped to stabilize them by pouring rice inside of the pumpkin and around the outside of the vase.   I also made these cute painted jars from old spaghetti sauce jars and olive oil jars- I loved these as well!!  To add a splash of color my girl friend helped me to whip out table runners from Joann's clearance section fabric that helped tie together all the colors as well!

 

A Memento Box was placed at the head table and at each place the guests were given "MAD Advice" sheets and "A note to the little pumpkin..." sheets to place in the memento box.  I just printed these on postcard sheets I found at Office Depot.  The parents to be will have fun reading the new parenting suggestions an the little one will be able to grow up to read the notes from friends and family to her.

The Cupcakes were a Pumpkin Cupcake with a Cream Cheese Frosting- super yummy!!  Just piped on the frosting and added a cute pumpkin candy on top.

And a fun little mimosa bar with orange juice, cranberry juice, and a pomegranate spritzer to top off the cute fall theme!!

 

And it was a success... we wore out my red head- sure sign a wild time was had, lol!  Hope this gave you some fun ideas if you are thinking of doing a little pumpkin shower yourself!!

PS- Looking for some cute DIY Little Pumpkin shower invitations- check out these printable ones HERE!

In the Nest, Ready to Learn Classroom Behavior Chart

Since school in getting ready to start for most of the world (we have already been back two weeks now!), I figured I should share our little behavior chart for our classroom so some of you all could take advantage!!  We are doing a little birdie theme, which I may get myself together enough to take pictures and show, but for now, here is the behavior chart!!  The students each have a clothes pin with their name and they all start out on green (woo hoo!) and can move up for good choices and down for poor choices!  Ours hangs on one of our cabinet doors and works wonderfully!

You can download the prints HERE.  I sent them to Costco and ordered 8X10 prints (there are four in all and costs about $6 to print).  You will have to cut the red from the purple.  I glued down the pieces on some butcher paper in the correct order and laminated to help make it more durable. 

Hope you enjoy!