Merry Christmas!

Yes, Christmas Day was a few days ago,

 but my wish for you is that you will keep the spirit of Christmas in your hearts all year long. 

(This was our Christmas card, though only a few were actually sent!  Will do better next year!!! I hope!)

Merry Christmas my blogland friends!

You've made this blog such a lovely experience!

Virtual hugs and smiles to all of you!!

Photo Confetti Tutortial

 Here is the Photo-confetti Picture Tutorial (finally!)

(Click here to see my original version)

What you will need:

144 photos cropped down to 1" x 1"

(I print mine on Epson Premier Art Matte Scrapbook paper)

3/4" circle hole punch

12" x 12" piece of card stock

mini glue dots adhesive

12" x 12" frame

ruler

pencil

art eraser

Start by making a mark at .5 inches then every inch after that at the top of your page.

  Repeat on each edge of your paper.

Using your pencil marks, line up the ruler and mark off a grid.

(You can save a little time and just make tick marks at every inch,

but this may not be as accurate as the grid.)

 (below:  just making tick marks) 

Erase the lines leaving the intersection marks.  This is where you will place your photos.

Now, add your photos using mini glue dots adhesive.  My photos are a collection of photos of my family from my parents childhood to today.  I try to mix up the older photos with the newer ones.  Also, I try to mix up up the photos so there is a portrait next to a group photo...make it visually pleasing.

Another item I added was an identifying tag at the bottom right corner.

Ours says "Earley Family Est. 1959."

Ta-da!! Here is the finished product!

It looks great on a photo stand or hanging on the wall.

I'd love to see your version!

Smiles!!!

Linking to:

American Crafter Auditions

State Fair of Texas

 Its that time of year again.  The State Fair of Texas opened this weekend!  I can't wait til we get to go!  (I'm slightly jealous of all those lucky ones that were able to take advantage of the glorious weather today!)  I found a few pictures through the last few years that I really loved.  Be sure to see how the little boy at the end has grown in two years!  Oh, it really does fly by.

2008

2008

2009

2007

2009

Don't forget to come back October 3rd thru October 9th for the Pretty Packages Party!

<a href="http://blackberryvine.blogspot.com/"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4125/5023605241_1582ff7084_m.jpg" width="125" height="125" alt="The Blackberry Vine" /></a>

Meet Will

Photography is another hobby I enjoy.  It took me awhile to make the change from film SLR to digital SLR, but now I love it!  So does my husband as I can take TONS of photos without the cost of developing them all!

Besides my children, my next favorite subjects are my dad's longhorns (Will is the little baby on the left in photo below,) my brother's cattle and MY rooster, Jeff (technically he lives at brother's ranch, but other than that, he's mine.)

The shots below are of Will, one of a pair of  about 2 year old steers that live with my parents.  (They were a gift from my brother.)

Mom refers to them as "yard art," but Dad wanted them for a purpose.  He enjoys participating in Texas Historical Reenactments like the Battle of San Jacinto.  One day he hopes to have them pull a cart at one of those.  If it happens, you'll be some of the first to know as these steers are a lot more like a couple of Golden Retrievers than draft animals.

  Anyway...here's Will.  The top photo is one of my favorites of him.  I really like the setting sun lighting his ears and horns through the pines.  It's also interesting to see how their horns change as they grow.  The first photo was taken in March and the bottom photo was taken in August.  In the August photo you can see how they're starting to point up and out.  Can't wait to see what he looks like a few years from now.

WILL ~ MARCH

WILL ~ AUGUST

What do you love to photograph?

iVillage

Wow!  I'm blown away!  iVillage chose one of my post to share on their website along with several other cute craft ideas.  Go check it out!

http://www.ivillage.com/mark-your-kids-milestones-12-easy-diy-ideas-bookmark-it/6-b-258439

smiles!

Scrapboxes

OK, here is another idea I hijacked from Martha Stewart and Darcy Miller.

Darcy Miller records lots of her family's life events with the shadow boxes that she calls Scrapboxes. 

http://www.marthastewart.com/photogallery/family-history-in-the-making-darcys-frames-and-scrapboxes

Loved the idea and wanted to give it a try so I headed down to my friendly neighborhood Hobby Lobby.

Their shadow boxes were 1/2 off, but their barnwood frames were cheaper than the black ones sooooo...

broke out the trusty spray paint.  Have to say, this is a little more effort than I'll probably put into it next time, but if you're wanting to match a room's decor, definitely worth it.  Then its easy, schmeezy.  Spray adhesive on back board, scrapook paper to fit, mount photo on some foam squares, add 3D object with glue dots & journal.  This goes very quickly if you do not spray paint the frame...and I have a hard time with delayed gratification!  Smiles!!!

Linked to:

Framed Photo Confetti

I just love Darcy Miller from Martha Stewart Weddings. She is so talented and clever! I happened to see the episode where she was sharing

her scrapboxes with Martha. SO AMAZING!!!

One in particular caught me eye...The Framed Photo Confetti Box.

http://www.marthastewart.com/photogallery/family-history-in-the-making-darcys-frames-and-scrapboxes?lpgStart=1&currentslide=14&currentChapter=1#ms-global-breadcrumbs

Well I didn't have any photo confetti, but I have lots of pictures and a photo printer. I didn't do a step-by-step of this as I wasn't blogging yet, but will do one as I'm going to recreate the above picture for both of my brothers. (Not really worried about spoiling the surprise for them...they're not exactly craft/food blog followers! )

Basically, this is what I did:

I made a file folder on my computer with a special label just for these pictures.

Then I went through folders I had already created for each of my family members, copying the pictures of them that I wanted to use and transferring them to the above mentioned folder. (I tried to be sure there were an equal number of pictures of all the siblings...if you have children, you know how this goes...lots of pictures of first child, some of 2nd child and, well, the 3rd child has the fewest.) This one has 120 pictures. I took each picture, transferred it to a Print Shop program, cropped and resized to about 7/8" square.

The page was full of tiny black & white photos of my sweet family.

Then I made my own "confetti" by punching out each picture with a 3/4 circle punch. On a 12 x 12 piece of heavy white cardstock, I lightly lined out a grid in pencil. I erased the lines except for the "+" where the lines intersected. With mini glue dots I randomly added each photo. I also created a little label that I also printed with the photo that said "Earley Family, Est. 1959" I added it to the left corner, close to a picture of my paretns at their wedding. Since I didn't have any scrapboxes or shadow boxes on hand, I used a 12 X 12 frame I got 1/2 off at hobby lobby. It worked great!

I made this for my parents as a late 51st Wedding Anniversary gift. They seemed to really like it!

I can't wait to make more!!

My first attemt to link to one of these...bear with me if I make a mess of it...