Catarina: My Muse

 
 
 
 

So I have been dragging my camera everywhere practicing my skills with photographing anything and everything that will let me. My friend's daughter, Catarina was quite a willing participant this evening at Chick Fil A. The lighting in the play area is a little wonky, but I got a few fun pictures of the little pixie with her big blue eyes!

I Love You, Stinky Face

 


Aaron and I play this game. We make stinky faces at each other. He is so hilarious! He makes the best stinky faces! Here's today's stinky face game while we were Case Ole with our friends. I love this little Stinky Face!

Photography practice

 
 
 
 


So I am taking an online course in photography. I am learning to operate my digital SLR camera in full manual mode. SCARY. I started out the week not knowing A from Auto. LOL. It started slowly with learning how to manipulate aperture. I learned quite a bit after getting some pretty constructive criticism. By the end of the week, I was shooting in full manual mode. I have some things to learn, but I feel like I am finally going to be able to use my camera to it's full potential. It's going to take lots of practice.

 
 
 

Cherry Garcia Cupcakes

 


Well, I got some great news today. Though I do have several places with atypical skin cells, none of them are cancerous. I have been worried for a few weeks now after the first set of biopsy results came back bad, but inconclusive. Well this 2nd set of 4 all said they were just atypical. They could potentially turn to cancer, but as long as I am careful to be checked frequently that I should be able to avoid the real cancers! This is AWESOME news.

So I decided to make a batch of cupcakes to celebrate. I actually tried this on Tuesday with decent results, but decided to use a different flavor today. Essentially you can make a cupcake in any of your favorite icecream flavors and it's super easy! All you need to do is get a white cake mix and substitute the water and oil for 2 cups of your favorite icecream melted. Use the eggs required on the back, mix everything thoroughly and then only fill your cupcake papers halfway instead of 3/4 of the way. These cupcakes will puff up more than average. I have been getting 3 dozen cupcakes out of 1 box of mix. Bake for around 14 to 15 minutes at 350. Then I make a flavored icing to compliment the cupcake, add a garnish and serve! Aren't they pretty! Well, they are tasty, too.


*note. 1 pint of premium icecream will yield 2 cups melted, but some of the store brands have a lot of air in them so you may need more if you choose to use them.

** These were made with 1 pint of Ben & Jerry's Cherry Garcia and I have also made a batch with Chunky Monkey. Both were good.

Central Texas State Fair

 

Sunday after I got home from work, I took a little snooze. Then we decided to take the boys to the Central Texas State Fair. It really wasn't crowded at all. Ian had a grand time riding the rides. Aaron was just a wee bit too short. Poor little dude was pretty patient especially after we gave him a corn dog and some kettle corn! :) The weather was nice and we enjoyed a little family outing.

Messy Playdate

 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 

Today we hosted an after school messy playdate. I put a tarp down in the back yard and put our little toddler slide and picnic table on it. Then I covered them in shaving cream (about 5 or 6 cans worth.) I also filled up the kiddie pool for post messy rinsing. So we had the kids come over and boy did they ever have fun. Slipping and sliding and all rolling around! It was all sorts of hilarious! The kids had a ball. And since shaving cream rinses so easily, the clean up was super easy. Hose the kids down, dunk them in the pool and voila, clean up super easy.

Did someone say clean, messy fun?

Repurposed Jeans

 
 
 


I like to try new things. I'm willing to take a chance of failing and just go for it, but this time I was cutting off a perfectly okay pair of jeans that could have gone to Good Will so I was a little hesitant. But I figured what the heck, live a little, Carla! LOL! So I lopped off the legs of my pair of jeans with my scissors and it was off to the races with the sewing machine! I'm really not much of a seamstress. My mom taught me the basics when I was a little girl and I never did go any further. So I got my sewing machine set up and was ready to dig in. Here are the basics.

1. Take a pair of jeans and cut the legs off right underneath the back pockets. Save the pockets to put on your apron. (Mine were back pocketless so I fashioned my own on apron #1)

2. Cut the back of the leg up the middle to open up your apron.

3. Fold the apron back in half and cut "J" shape out of the top to make arm holes.

4. Fashion biased tape with the fabric of your choice. I made my 1 inch wide so you need about 3.5 to 4 inches to do that. (Turn over the fabric and fold in the sides and press with a very hot iron. Then fold in half and press with the iron again making a one inch "pocket" to slip the edges of the apron in.

5. Using pins, afix the biased tape to the edges of the apron. I put pieces on each side of the bottom first, then started at the top left and came down the arm and kept the length on the end as the tie and repeated on the right side. Then I put a piece on the top to go across the apron. Then I attached straps. I did two different ones. The first, I made a strap to put arms through on each side. On the second one I just made a loop at the top big enough to slip over my head.

6. If you are going to attach a pocket, pin it on the front and sew

VOILA. A repurposed pair of jeans!

There are certainly flaws in mine and things I would do differently, but for a work apron, I think they look just fine for me. :)