Kaelyn's Nursery/Toddler Room Tour

Ha, ha! Do you remember this post here where I said I would post pictures of Kaelyn's room when it was all decorated? Well, I'm finally going to share it with you! Oh where does the time go. Its been done for awhile now, and guess what, its probably one of the least expensive nursery, or now toddler rooms you will find! Almost everything is DIY projects and I think it turned out pretty fun!

I asked my dad if he could whip up a little art table for Kaelyn. He had it done within a couple days and she loves it for drawing and her tea parties! The fabulous easy to clean chairs came from Walmart of all places for only $5 each!

The doorways and windows show the character of the old house we live in. My favorite feature.

I did the modern canvas painting of Kaelyn from when she was 4 months old. The flag banner was made from some scrap fabrics. The 'read' wooden letters came from Hobby Lobby and I painted them red. Hubby drilled holes in the back for me to hang them. Hubby also made the bookcase. Kaelyn really needed that with her huge collection of books! The dresser came from my brother. It was blond with gold handles... we modernized it!

Curtains came from the World Market. My mom bought Kaelyn the beautiful stain glass hanging from a lady who makes them here in our hometown. Have to love all the handmade goodness!

David picked up the crib for a steal. He had to fix a couple springs but after that it was in good shape. The plan was to paint it white but with all the other house renovations going on it never got done.

The wall decor was a fun and easy project. The hoops came from Hobby Lobby and were spiced up with some fun fabric scraps. The 'K' was hand stitched on.

The silhouette picture of Kaelyn was made using Photoshop and Illustrator. I'll try and share a better view of it in another post. The prayer is like the ones available in my etsy shop. I always had a prayer over my bed when I was little so wanted my daughter to have something similar.

The closet door was one of the major project remodels in this room. We widened the closet opening and put nice folding doors in. It made for a lot easier access to everything inside.

That concludes the tour of Kaelyn's room. Hope you enjoyed it!

Digital Photo Book: Clone Stamp Tool

Kaelyn's one year book is getting real close to being complete. I have 10 months worth already finished! Yippee! I'm looking forward to the finalizing stage where I can print it all out and see what needs to be revised. But before I jump any further I want to share one of my favorite editing tools in Photoshop with you. The tool is the Clone Stamp. It is awesome for cleaning up facial imperfections, not so lovely backgrounds... anything you want to clean up or get rid of... this is your tool. (Well the tool I like to use the best for it anyway.)

Here is a little tutorial of how it works:

The clone stamp is shown on the left tool bar. Here I have it selected and the name has popped up.

You will most likely want to change the brush size which is located towards the top. I have it selected.) If your going to be working on a face I suggest using a very small brush size and make sure you zoom in close to your subject. You will want Hardness to be at 0 or a small number. You may also want to play with the opacity level that is also located at the top. But if your working on a background a larger bush size works well for large areas and keep the opacity at 100%. When you get close to your subject make the brush size smaller and up the hardness so it matches or looks real. You can always undo if it doesn't look right.

When you have your brush size set to your choosing you can click on your photo to get rid of the menu. Then hit Alt which brings up a circle with a cross bar. Put it over which ever area you would like to duplicate and click. Then you can click the area that you want to change and viola you have now used the stamp tool. Drag it around and fill in the areas you want changed. Alt and click as many times as you would like to get a realistic look.

Here I just quickly did it to show you how it can change. If I wanted it to look very realistic I would have been more careful with the sheet pattern, but I just wanted you to get the idea.

When Kaelyn started crawling she wouldn't stay on a sheet for a solid background color so the clone stamp came in very handy! I suggest just playing around with the tool and you'll get the hang of it in no time.

Here are a few more pages added to Kaelyn's book:

Canvas Print GIVEAWAY!

{photo taken by Dolby Photography}

If you haven't already seen, there is another Giveaway going on at Touched Creatively. This time my generous sponsor, UPrinting is giving away a 16x20 rolled canvas print. I think it would be awesome to make a little wooden frame and wrap the print around for a professional finished look. Otherwise leave as is and use for promoting your own business at shows. So hurry and go enter HERE. Winner will be announced this coming Monday.

My friends at Dolby Photography surprised me and took some more amazing photos of Kaelyn a couple weeks ago. I'll try to share more about that next week. Oh, and that is another one of my new headbands that I made especially for Kaelyn. It has been so fun creating some new things!

Digital Photo Book: Keep Going

Hello, hello! Wow, things have been crazy here. Crazy but good. The last couple of weeks we've been spending a lot of time with relatives, getting ready for the art/craft show, picking up limbs at three households (my own even twice, thanks to the lovely South Dakota wind), working on some new projects and Kaelyn has had fun having the little neighbor girl over for some play dates. With so much happening I've still managed to get a few more pages done on Kaelyn's book. Not a lot but I have to remember that every little bit helps and the end is in sight! Next Wednesday I'll try to share another one of my favorite Photoshop tools with you. It is a must know for touch ups and cleaning up backgrounds. But for now I'll share just a few of my new pages...


I love the pictures of Kaelyn asleep on me. That rarely happened... seriously I could count the number of times on one hand! I think every time she fell asleep when she was a baby I took a picture! Funny I know. But seriously I thought all babies slept until she arrived. Now I know otherwise. Our little energizer bunny... love your energy... kinda wish I had some of it!

Show is Quickly Approaching

Remember to come check out the vendors at Trinity Lutheran Church in Arlington, SD this Saturday from 1:30 to 4:00 if your in the area! Vendors will be spread out through the Sunday school classrooms. I'll be displaying some of my art prints and cards found HERE as well as my newly created headbands pictured. Headband sizes vary from baby to adult and are so adorable modeled. They make fantastic photo props as well as one of a kind gifts! I've been having so much fun getting away from 'fine art' for a bit. I also have several more new creations in mind that I can't wait to make... and may just lead into me opening a brand new shop on etsy. We'll see!

I hope your having a fantastic week and enjoying the beautiful weather! (Even though its been quite windy I love the warmth!)

Country Baby

Part of Thursday afternoon was spent at my parents place, the farm that I grew up on. It was fun to see Kaelyn running around the yard and exploring. It was a beautiful day... so peaceful with the birds happily singing in the background, the warmth from the sun shining down on us... oh the wide open country is wonderful!

Some bubbles had to be blown too! That didn't last too long as she accidentally poured most of it out of the tube. Good thing we have lots more at home! (Kaelyn's also sporting one of my newer headbands I made. They have been a fun project and having them modeled even makes it better!)

Kaelyn flew her first kite in the nice open space across the street from our house on Wednesday. She was delighted and didn't want to stop for supper! It wasn't even flying most of the time, but she didn't care. Dragging it around behind her was about just as fun!

Have a great weekend!

Digital Photo Book: Layouts and Photo Ideas

Kaelyn's baby book is over half complete! Very exciting! Today, I want to talk a little about taking photos. First of all if your using a digital camera... which most people today are, take LOTS. I take a whole bunch but usually only a handful are keepers. Which the good thing is I'm not out any money and the keepers are worth so much. These photos will be treasured keepsakes. Without them I wouldn't remember most of the wonderful happenings and how little Kaelyn once was! When your taking pictures, try to get an interesting angle. You don't always have to center your main subject. Off center is usually best. The good thing with Photoshop your able to crop and rotate your photos.

Think about the details when your taking photos. The details can include so many things like the subjects showing size differences, unique positioning to having different creative backgrounds... or just clean backgrounds. Its usually easier to get good backgrounds when shooting outdoors. When inside a home if there's a messy background, hang a sheet or drape it over something. Your photos will look a lot more professional. Lighting is also another detail to keep in mind. But overall, just have fun experimenting, be creative and snap photos you will want to keep or share with others.

Weekend Happenings

I hope you all had a wonderful Easter. Our family sure did! We certainly have so much to be thankful for. Kaelyn had lots of fun with all the holiday activities. And we loved spending time with family.

The yearly tradition at Grandma Cindy's house is decorating eggs. Of course Kaelyn had to be the messy one and throw her eggs into the dye! Sorry Grandma, good thing you were predicting a little mess. She sure had fun!

And to top the night off, Kaelyn got her first pony ride! Was she ever excited! I was very lucky to get this picture... my camera died before this but I tried turning it back on for just one more and this is what I got.

We are really enjoying the warmer weather and being able to spend more time outdoors. It is hard getting Kaelyn to come back inside. She would be content blowing bubbles and drawing on the sidewalk all day.

To get away from the artwork for a while I decided to create some headbands. This is one of my favorites so far. It can fit toddlers to adults. I have a craft/art show coming up on April 17th. It will be held in the afternoon at the Trinity Lutheran Church in Arlington. There should be a wide variety of handmade goods so I encourage you to stop by if your in the area.