A Girl With A Glue Gun!

Emma and I have been crafting away the last few weeks and hopefully I will get to share many more projects that are fun to do! This week I am sharing decorative frames. I love frames and the one thing I have around my house is extra  everything! So we decided to take our "extras" and glue it to a frame. Back in May I went to a few garage sales and found 8x10 frames for $.25 each. I painted them and used them for Brody's party. But now I wanted to dress them up. Add some memories to them and our extras.

What we used:
hot glue gun
fabric
straight razor
shells
frames

The first frame we worked on was our memory frame from Emma's vacation. This was the easiest project. We started with cracked shells and flat shells. Gluing them side by side. We finished it off with taking the nice shells and gluing them in the cracks. Sadly we ran out of shells but we can add more next time!

Final Result with one of my senior models as the example.

Ok for the last project we covered our frames with fabric. I have so much fabric left from sewing projects and thought it would be great to use the "extra" to jazz up the frame. First I hot glue all around the front of the frame. Then I wrap the fabric around the front opening and stretching it around to the back. Fold in the sides of the fabric and glue along the edges. (you could cut the outside edges and then fold in as a different option). Next I take a straight edge razor and cut the opening where the picture shows. Finally I cut small slits and glue the inside edges in the frame. Set to dry for 24 hours.

So you don't want to use it as a frame.....then do not cut the opening and make several of them to hang on the wall. I will show my final results once I get mine up!

My 2nd Home

As many know my family and I travel to Clearwater, FL. several times a year. I have always wanted to do a wedding on the beach there. It is like a 2nd home to me. So inviting and just a sense of calmness. When I found out Nicole was traveling there to have a destination wedding I knew now or never! Chatted with her on facebook quite a bit and finally we signed a contract! So June arrived and I flew down there for a quick 24 hours. It was such a great time and reassured me that destination weddings were another area I wanted to cover!

The weather was perfect, well almost perfect! It was slighty cloudy with a nice hint off sunshine. Everything ran really smooth up until the bride was getting ready to walk down the aisle. What do you know?! It decided to rain, but only for a few minutes. Typical Florida weather!!! The coordinator wiped the chairs down and everything restarted. Nicole glowed and smiled ear to ear as she walked toward Tony. They are quite adorable together! From there we walked the beach with the bridal party and really enjoyed the light we had. I captured so many beautiful images. Look on the website soon and you will notice a their very own gallery!
Congratualtions Tony and Nicole! I wish you many years of happiness.

DIY- Tissue Flowers

I love making tissue flowes for parties. It is simple yet festive!

Here is what you need:
scissors
tissue paper (8 sheets per ball)
piping or ribbon (i use ribbon)

Step 1) Stack your 8 sheets of tissue and fold accordion style
Step 2) fold in half to create a crease
Step 3) Tie ribbon or piping in the middle to create a seperation
Step 4) Trim the edges by rounding or triangle
Step 5) Start closest to middle by pulling the tissue paper gently up and toward the ribbon

Step 6) Repeat

I LOVE Bella Beads!

So I love to browse etsy and find beautiful creations! I talk about etsy all the time and if I love the design that much then I will contact the artist and ask to photograph their designs. Sometimes it's the opposite. About two months ago I found Kris from Bella Bead Studio and just oozed over her designs. She came to the studio and had a case full of designs. What made it so perfect is that I had a bridal session setup and she agreed to model a few bridal pieces. Of course she offers everything and I mean EVERYTHING!

Here are a few of my personal favorite designs and a few from the bridal shots.