Gingercake

Insta who?

I finally figured out my instagram account! It is as fun as everyone says.  I admit that so far it is a lot of baby but I swear I will be sewing again soon!  Come and follow me at @gingercakesews.  

 

January Birthday Girl

Anne turned 7 last week.  I won't give my usual "time marches on" speech but I am feeling it.  She is a precious girl ~ happy and sweet and full of generosity.  She also has a new side to her that Travis and I are noticing.  Her big sister likes to be ready for the bus EARLY.  Like 20 minutes early.  This is not important to Anne and she is showing a strong aversion to being rushed.  She waits to put on her coat.  She lingers over hugs to the baby.  She slowly ties her shoes.  She wanders around looking for papers and books as the time gets closer.  This drives Elsie crazy and Anne knows it.  Anne has always just done whatever Elsie wants.  I try to smooth things over by reminding Elsie that there is plenty of time.  I don't enjoy seeing Elsie unhappy but I do like to seeing the middle child show her own determination (even though it is a little passive aggressive at this point).  A little backbone is always encouraged and this 7 year old has certainly got it!

We had a bowling party with the cousins.  So fun and easy!

Having an amazing photographer for a sister in law (and great friend) is such a blessing.  Thank you Jenny for taking these photos of the bowling experience and the birthday girl.  You captured it perfectly as usual.  Jenny is posting pictures on her blog daily right now and they are great inspiration.  Check it out for sure!

Happy Birthday my little sweet.

More About the Pom Pom Owl Purses

This weekend I am doing the Handmade Arcade again.  This will be my 4th time doing the show!  Before you think I am total nut doing a craft show only a few weeks after having a baby, I made all my stuff back in Septmeber and I am happily resisting the urge to sew a single other item before the show.  It feels so wierd to have a show in only 2 days and not doing any last minute stressy sewing.  When I say wierd, I mean it feels really great!

This time I made all my owl bags with pom poms for the show.  Remember this cute bag?  I worked out how to make it easier by tacking the pom poms on with steam a seam light.  This was great and made the process much faster.  You have to cut the steam a seam into sections to get around the curve.  Once the poms poms are attached, then you sew the 2 sides together and DO NOT trim your seams down.  The last time I trimmed my seams and ended up with several poms poms falling off and it's pretty tedious sewing those little suckers back on by hand.  

Also,  Vanessa let me preview her brilliant new photography ebook a couple of weeks ago.  I really recommend it to help you take photos of your sewn creations.  She talks quite a bit about staging and photo editing.  These tips are simple and useful!  To show some of the "behind the scenes" I took a picture of my staging to share with you...

I use the hooks for the towels in the bathroom.  The backdrop is the coat closet by my front door.  I open my front door to get better light (even though it was 27 degrees outside!).  This is my best location to get a wider shot of my creations even though the natural light is only mediocre. The first photo I lightened up in PSE and second I just did in my iphoto.  I had to really work on all those shadows!

Vanessa is giving away a copy of her ebook for sew mama sew giveaway day so head over to her blog and leave a comment for a chance to win!

 

 

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These Days...

The newborn baby days go by in a blur.  We sit on the couch together so much!  I am enjoying her so much.  My other 3 kids were born so close together it almost seems like I was a different person back then- dealing with a baby and 2 toddlers did not make for peaceful days on the couch.  Jenny took more beautiful pictures here.  This one is in the nursery with all my "stuff" around.

and guess what??  The newborn baby gowns fit beautifully.  That was a relief since I made like 6 of them!

In Progress and Taking Advice

 

This is going to be one awesome pattern if I ever get it done.  It has been over a year since I first made one of these.  I am wondering if it is too complicated but all the pictures are already taken and uploaded to my computer so I am going to move forward!  This afternoon begins the writing of the pattern.  A process that I love and hate at the same time since it is hard work but really satisfying to create a good pattern.

In other news, I participated in Jen's "try it" flickr group.  Cal was still in his PJs and the light was pretty meager but I figured I could just try since waiting for the sun to shine in January in Western PA could take weeks!  Also, I took Vanessa's advice and bought a fliter/ reflector that not only softens bright sunlight but also will reflect a little light to give a better affect.  The result was a great capture of my boy. 

He is "framed" by the table in the background and I used the reflector side to give extra light to his face.  I took about 50 pictures to try this out and this one was the first!  What have you been trying out lately? Jenny is going to do a series on this "try it" theme and I am looking forward to getting more tips!  Check out her flickr page to see how beautifully she photographs her children (and mine since they are her neices and nephew!)

 

Farmland Christmas Decorating

I love my new iphone.  Cal and discovered this snowman while running errands and we had to get a picture.  Isn't it awesome?  It is 3 hay bales stacked on top of each other.  The hat is a feed bucket.  The carrot nose is a construction cone.  He only has one arm!   I grew up in the atlanta suburbs where all the decorations were candles in the windows, a wreath on the door and a spotlight on the tasteful elegant brick home.   It's fun to be a little tacky in the country!  So, are you a tacky or tasteful decorator?  

Christmas Cookies Anyone? Cookie Party 2011

Whew!  Another cookie party has come and gone.  Those are my cookies above.  I did all the same things as last year.  I even used the same invitations!  Lame.  I know.  I wanted to add "wear your most obnoxious christmas sweater" to the invite but worried the christmas sweater wearing types might not think it was so funny!  Maybe next year I will be braver :)

That's all the cookies- well almost all since I bought a sideboard/ buffet this year that held some additonal trays.  I love seeing everyone arrage their cookies and walk around tasting.  

As usual we voted after everyone had tasted and looked and discussed.  The voting is VERY secretive.  Just kidding- everyone blah blah blahs about who they voted for.

  We also had cute kid entertainment during all this action...

And finally the votes were tallied and the winners announced!

Not my best picture of these excellent bakers!!!  They are holding my prizes which I forgot to get a good picture of.  They were cute patchwork pot holders and sanding sugar my friend Karen got from Amish country.  Michelle won best all around cookie AGAIN.  Her cookie was a peanut butter chocolate revel.  That's like 8 years in a row folks!   Aven won best tasting for a delicious light and fluffy orange buttermilk cookie.  And Mary (Michelle's mom!) won most beautiful cookie for her pretty truffles.  I only got a picture of the truffles and they are beautiful!

Aren't those poinsettas so pretty?  One of our newcomers was 13 year old Syndey and her mom Wendi who made 80 beautifully decorated sugar cookies.  That's a lot of mom/ daughter bonding!  The result was some really cute cookies.

I really toned down my Christmas decorating this year.  I even gave a big bag of decorations to the Goodwill.  Is this some kind of milestone in my life?  Instead of accumilating Christmas decorations, I am finally getting rid of them!  Or maybe I am just getting wise to less is more (and less clean up in January!).

I am fascinated by people who can take good pictures of their trees.  How do they do that?  I decided to experiment a little.  Here is pretty good one of mine from the party...

Our tree has been named "chubba wubba" by the kids.  I usually go for a taller and thinner tree but in a moment of pretending like I don't like to be in charge of everything (haha-but it's true!)  I let Travis and the kids choose this chubby short tree.  It's still cute though.

Here is another picture of the tree at night that has a little more interest...

Maybe night is the key since that one looks pretty good!  I set my ISO to the highest setting (1800) and took the picture with no flash.  Then I lightened it up in iphoto.  First I tried to edit it in PSE but I couldn't get it quite right.  Sometimes something more simple works!  

See my white tree in the background?  I love it so much.  A garage sale find!  I decorate is with pastel new and vintage glass ornaments.  Here is a close up..

 

So, cookie party 2011 complete!  Thank you to my talented SIL Jenny Stein for taking picture of the cookies and that sweet pictures of the girls entertaining the crowd.  

The next week and a half are for making a few handmade gifts and trying to enjoy this sweet time of year.  I am always torn between wanting to squeeze it all in (should I book a fancy breakfast with Santa?  the nutcracker?  go to the lights show?)  and just spending time at home admiring our cozy decorated home.  

So, did any of you attend a cookie party or throw one yourself?  Give me some tips to try next year!  This party may need some shaking up!  What else do you have planned before Christmas?  

Brighten Up and Look Beautiful!

I was asked to make a duffle bag for a special order and  since I am on my crazy pattern improvement kick, the duffle pattern was calling my name.  This bag is going to hard to put in the mail- I would like to keep it for myself!

Ignore those threads hanging off the handle!!  She saw my new notebook slipcover title and wanted the matroyska fabric (joel dewberry has arrived and is safe on my shelf so no more FFHD!) As for the duffle pattern, I had heard that the quilted piece on the bottom might be  too long and I knew this would be an opportunity to get it worked out finally.  

Things are not all that different in this pattern but I thought you might want to hear a bit about what programs I am using to make these changes.  A big part of doing all this pattern updating is that now I have better software programs to write the patterns and create my graphics.  

I was using Word and I purchased Pages from the itunes store back in May for only $19.99.  It's the Macintosh presentation software and It is such a wonderful and easy program.  The layout is simple (yeah for me!) and flexible.  To write out a pattern, you need to be able to move around the pictures, create textboxes on top of those pictures, change colors, etc.  I don't use any of their templates- I just start with a blank page, move the margins out to .5" and begin writing.  I like the white space and feel like all the templates are distracting.  Pages has been a big help to simplify my pattern writing.

The other software that has been such a help has been Photoshop elements.  I spent about $80 which was a little hard for me to justify at first since I had a hard time getting started on the program.  I am not going to say it has been the easiest program to learn but it has been really really good for my skills.  The challenge and frustration have been well worth it since now I love it and it makes my pictures so much better.  I thought I would share my favorite uses for this program.

First, I drag my dark picture taken by the camera (with no flash) out of iphoto and right into PSE.  

 
 Then I use the auto smart fix option under the enhance bar.

 
Next I lighten the photo up further by going to the "levels" section...

Levels has been an awesome discovery!  When I made these notebook covers for AnnKelle, Kelle Boyd took my pictures and made them even brighter for her blog- brighter but not false looking.  When I asked how she did it, she told me about levels!

See the mountain up there?  You want to click on the middle triangle under the mountain and move it left of center.  

See?  Bright but not false!  Finally, I usually sharpen the photo with the auto sharpen so the stitches show up a little better .

Then I save the final product right back into Iphoto or onto my desktop.  See the difference?  Amazing and natural looking!

More about this sweet baby shirt here.  I am no expert, but this is what is working for me right now!

With these methods I was able to go back into my old patterns and take some of the dark pictures from my sewing room and really lighten them up.  I feel like it is really important for the instruction pictures to be as clear as possible.

If I am making a new title, I stay in PSE and I like to fool around with making my text really stand out.  I type out whatever little phrase I can think of to describe my project and it usually looks dark and insignificant.  

I go into layer style to fix them up.

Style settings opens into this handy box...

I begin by adding a drop shadow and then add the outer glow.  You can move the circles around to adjust it to look how you would like.

Sometimes this is enough but if I want to get cutesy (and I usually do) I add stroke also...

I get most of my graphics from Pugly Pixel and Fuzzimo.  Pugly Pixel is a wonderful source for graphics information and she offers membership levels tha are really affordable plus, many of her items are free or you can just buy individual items.  I bought her paper collection and I have used it over and over to create shapes and titles.  

Fuzzimo also offers lots of cool graphics and all for free- including zippers, scrabble tiles, safety pins, and the push pin I used in the new art caddy title below.  The doily is from pugly pixel and so is the tape strip.

It has taken me awhile to work out these good programs and now I feel like a well oiled machine  Again, I am not an expert and I still have lots to learn but I am happy with the clean and professional look I am getting.  I like to feel proud of the document I am sending out to people!  Hopefully you got some good tips here to make your sewing pictures look bright and beautiful.  

I would love to hear your tips if you have them!  

Spring Loverlies

SPRING!  We have had tons of rain but finally the sun is shining.  My sewing machine has been behaving badly the past couple of days and today I worked on my veg garden and got excited to grow some tomatoes and green beans.  I still have lots of manure to spread and seeds to plant though!  

The plants around the outside of the house are looking so pretty.  I decided to take some pictures and practice with my photoshop elements to sharpen them up.  Here are my spring loverlies for your viewing pleasure...

Don't you love that photoshop elements?!  Hope you are enjoying spring too.  The plants in the photos, in order, are daisy, chives, sweet woodruff, iris, ajuga, columbine, brunnera, peony, money plant, & kousa dogwood.  What do you have blooming?  

Climbing Fences

My husband has been putting up a split rail fence on our property.  A friend gave it to me a bunch when she replaced her fencing for her horses.  I told her we were having problems with deer in the garden and she thought maybe it would help.  What a wonderful gift!  It is so nicely aged and beautiful.

We may still use some for the garden, but this section just divides the mowed area from the higher grass.  The kids are really into the fence building- especially climbing it and hanging all over it.  It has been lots of fun evening activity.  Travis is not at all as amazed about this as me since he grew up in the country (unlike this suburban girl) and spent many hours climbing and sitting on fences as a kid.  When I mentioned this to him he said, "That's a big reason I am putting it up!  To see them play on it."  I see now that we are raising country kids, hmmm?

Above they are playing "horsey".  And below, the cat is joining in...

This last picture is for my mom, Linda, who loves peonies.  This is one is my newest addition...

We didn't have peonies down in Atlanta growing up- the summers are too hot and long.  My parents usually come up to visit in May and Mom gets to enjoy the blooms.  This year she can't come so this picture is for you Mom!  They are beautiful as usual and I'll pick a bouquet for you!