Amish

Amish children

This photo is from Arthur, IL. I saw this kids playing and thought that they were adorable. I just want to give the one in the center a big hug. So cute! This photo took me a while to edit. I had to remove some monkey bars from the foreground and a big red pickup truck in the background. Then I changed the saturation in the photo and added texture.

So to my personal life...the house is almost done! All that's left to paint are touch ups. Hooray. We'll probably spend a day or so cleaning after that and then we can move in. Finally!!! It took forever! I don't know when we will get internet access, but it may be until October. Ugh. I don't know how we'll do it. I remember a time without internet, but I can't imagine doing it again. I would not make a good Amish. I need my technology! :)

I'll try to post again before the big move. I have a couple of more photos all ready to be published. Later!

Excuses...

Summertime

Sorry I haven't posted much, yet again. My husband and I are in the process of painting and cleaning our house. It's taking much longer than expected. I am so sick of painting!!!

So, due to the fact that I have been unable to sleep all night (I tried going to bed around 7:30 last night and it's now 6:30 am...) I edited two new pictures and am now posting a new blog entry! Hooray!

So you know, I have opened an account at deviantART. There are prints for sale there, if you are interested. I'm working on getting some of my best work uploaded there and everything should be set up soonish.

OK, it's just a short post, but I thought I should say something. I will have another photo up later on!

Flameless Advent Wreath

So this is my homemade flameless candle Advent wreath.

I wanted an Advent wreath for my classroom, but I didn't want to use traditional candles, for many reasons. So I searched and searched for larger sized flameless candles and couldn't find any. So, I decided to try the little tea light candles. I got them at Walgreens, of all places. They were 2 for $3, which wasn't horrible.


So then came the problem of how to put them on a wreath. So I went to Hobby Lobby (I love Hobby Lobby...I could live there). The wreath base was only $2. I found the berries in their Christmas section. They had an entire aisle devoted to making your own Christmas wreath. I looked through everything there, and everything they had that was purple or pink was way too sparkly for Advent. Besides, I think that glitter should be used in moderation. I finally decided on some white berries for the wreath.

I lightly sponge painted the berries in the appropriate color. I still wanted some of the white to peek through. I also sponge painted the candles. I wrapped the "flame" up in masking tape so it wouldn't get paint on it. I then put on two coats of the paint so that there could be no way to tell that it had ever been white. The sponge painting gave it interesting texture.

I placed the berries in the wreath, wrapped the purple ribbon around and then added a bow. I put the candles in the center of the berries and I was done! It was a pretty easy project once I knew what I was doing.

Anyways, I just thought that I would share!