Photos of Jennie

The Flap about Snap–A Recap

April 24, 2012 · 18 comments

in Blogging, Good Things, Photos of Jennie, Things We've Done

Last weekend I went up to Utah for the Snap Conference: a get together for bloggers who craft or DIY. Before I get into how fun it was, let me apologize for not contacting anyone who lives in Utah. It was a quick trip in and out. I plan on coming back to Utah this summer and will hopefully see every friend or relative I have. Let’s move on.

How much fun did I have? A ton. This has got to be the nicest and friendliest bunch of people anywhere. I stayed with two other Austin bloggers, Kristen Duke, who woke up at the unhumanly crack of dawn early every day to teach a photography class and Lorie from Be Different Act Normal. Kristen is quite possibly the most outgoing person I’ve ever met and Lorie is hilarious. It made for a fun hotel room.

Classes were offered. Among those I took were SEO which means Search Engine Optimization. Also known as How to Get Google to Like You. I wrote things down but I have no idea what they mean. The guy who taught the class was Dutch and had really cool blue and tan saddle shoes.

Also somewhat mindblowing was the class on Photoshop. I can do a few things in Photoshop–zit removal and such–but I need to improve my skills tremendously.  The teacher, Amanda Padgett, happens to be brilliant and a very good teacher. I am an utter dunce at most things computer-related but I learned how to do a bunch of super useful and generally awesome things in Photoshop Elements. By the end of this year my pictures are going to be so stunning you’ll cry!

The other classes were more crafty; things like party planning and flower arranging. One of my favorite classes was about growing your handmade business. I don’t have a handmade business and the main thing I learned was that I never want to have one. What a pain! I also enjoyed a class about developing your own style taught by, among others, Shelley from House of Smiths. She is one of the funniest people ever.

I forgot to take any pictures but fortunately Kristen did and I stole this from her blog.

This is a photo of Kristen Duke, Kirsten from KoJo Designs who is simply gorgeous in real life, me (contrary to appearances I am neither pregnant nor obese; just wearing a flowy shirt that wasn’t behaving itself), and Heidi from Sew.Craft. Create (who is way cuter in real life).

Such a fantastic trip. I feel energized and excited to get back into a creative groove. Now I just have to put this stuff away (remind me again why I thought it was a good idea to unpack in the family room):

What I Did Instead of Making Oreo Stuff

March 13, 2012 · 3 comments

in Craziness (jennie's), Feeling Sorry for Myself, I'm Not So Great, Making Stuff, Photos of Jennie, Things We've Done, Weather

Welp, my “week of Oreo recipes” certainly ended with quite a fizzle, didn’t it? I was bursting with enthusiasm when I made my little announcement that I’d make a different recipe every single day. I hadn’t thought it through for more than ten seconds.  What didn’t occur to me was that I was swamped last week.

I had forgotten that I bought 22 lbs. of chicken breasts with the intent to can them. When I say “can” I technically mean “bottle”. It’s surprisingly easy; all you need is a pressure canner which I’m guessing not a single one of you has. I don’t have one either but my mom does. I’m sure she’ll talk all about it in her novel comment.

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By the way, those are not feathers floating in those jars, as some people have suggested. It’s just, uh, residue of some sort. Or maybe congealed fat? I don’t know. But I now have shelf-stable chicken that hopefully won’t develop botulism and kill my family.

Also last week I had to paint 23 tiny wooden peg dolls for a church project. It was for a re-creation of the first Relief Society meeting. It made sense to me when I thought the idea up but in retrospect it seems a little odd. In my usual style I finished the dolls without a second to spare. I was at the kitchen table serving dinner to my kids with one hand and blow-drying glaze with the other.

 

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Why wasn’t my husband serving dinner, you ask?

Because he has been doing this every day. It’s SXSW. When Austin, Texas swells to about ten million people (this picture is solid people on one of the busiest streets downtown.) He volunteered to run soundboards at a bunch of concerts so he’s getting to do whatever he wants for free. And he’s taking advantage of it.  Fine by me. He deserves to go out and have fun.

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Especially since he never once complained that these three bags of groceries were sitting un-put away for four days. Although he didn’t put them away either. Mellow or passive aggressive? Sometimes it’s a fine line.

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I bought some new rainboots.

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I had to, you see, because it’s been raining a lot lately. Especially on Saturday when I was tromping all over nature with my friend Tamara looking at beehives. Don’t believe me? Behold!
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Despite appearances I do not have a wiener. A beekeeping suit is not the most flattering of outfits. Especially when one is wearing two sweaters and a jacket underneath because MYGOSH!!! ITWASFREEZING!!!

In addition to these fun activities I also had to go to a couple of school programs, including a play in which my daughter had zero lines. So I made faces at her the entire time trying to get her to laugh instead. Because in my house it’s all about being the comic relief.

So, yeah, the Oreos.

I tried my best.

As I mentioned before, it was raining all week. And my kitchen is in the middle of my house with no windows. And the lighting was terrible. So I did a couple of those tutorials outside. You may notice a few shots of lawn in the background. (No, I do not have a mixer in my backyard.)

It was all for you, delightful and lovely readers. I love you that much.

 

How To Make A Cheap & Easy Photo Display

February 28, 2012 · 3 comments

in Decorating, Family, Good Things, How-To, Making Stuff, Photos of Jennie, Tutorial

You might think that when you have a big family, you have pictures of kids everywhere. The sad truth is that there are a very overwhelming number of photographs to deal with. Then there is always one child who is completely unphotogenic and you can’t very well have pictures of some children up and not others. Plus there’s the whole issue of buying so many frames, where to fit them all, etc. What I’m trying to say is that I have very few pictures of my kids around my house. I decided to fix the situation in a way that would combine cheap and simple with cute and interesting and would allow me to use quite a lot of pictures. The whole set up cost less than $10 and that includes getting 5 x 7s made of most of my photographs. The nice thing is that this arrangement can be made bigger or smaller and goes well with any style of decor. For How-To Tuesday, I’ll show you how to do your own picture wall.

 

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Cardstock (if you use thinner paper, the pictures will curl when hung).

Photos (I used mostly 5 x 7s with a few 4 x 6s to make things look a little different)

Twine or rope (I used jute twine from Home Depot. $2.50 for a roll.)

Mini clothespins (Regular-sized ones are too hefty. I got mine at Michaels and Hobby Lobby. About $3 for 24. )

Glue of some sort (I like my Tombo but a gluestick will work fine.)

Pushpins. Clear pushpins are excellent decorating helpers. You’d be surprised how often you can find ways to use them.

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Step One: Crop and cut your cardstock and photos (if necessary). I left a 1″-1.5″ border of cardstock around each photo. For the love of Fiskars, please use a paper cutter and not scissors! It’s impossible to get a decently straight line with scissors. Believe me!

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Step Two: Apply glue to the back of the picture and try your best to apply it to the cardstock without it being crooked.

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Step Three: Use your twine and pushpins to string up your display (I did one row at a time). It works best to have a helper telling you if things look straight. You might decide to do several symmetrical, even rows or do them kind of topsy-turvy like I did. The nice thing about pushpins is that you can pull them out and reposition them without making a mess of the wall.

Step Four: Hang your mounted photos with mini clothespins. They hold the pictures up surprisingly well.

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Stand back and enjoy! It’s super simple to switch out pictures (cut a piece of cardstock and slap on a new photo. Or even better; flip the current picture over and glue a new photo to the back).  You’ll always have an easy way to display your latest photos.

 

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The Beach

January 17, 2012 · 7 comments

in Good Things, Other People, Photos of Jennie, Places I've Gone

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While I do like to get dressed up and go out, my favorite is to sit around and do my little hobbies. While partying in Las Vegas can be fun (maybe like once a decade), I enjoy peace and quiet. Most of my friends are of the same mind. So when my friend Cheryl said that she’d planned a girls-only trip to a beach house over MLK weekend for four of us, we knew we wouldn’t need much more than books, knitting and food.

And indeed it proved to be laid-back and wonderful. The weather was sunny and pleasant because it’s Texas. But not warm, because it isn’t Hawaii for pete’s sake.

The rental house was teeny and slightly, ahem, rustic in a ramshackle-at-the-beach sort of way. So if you didn’t get invited, blame the fact that the house was so small it only had one bathroom and not even a kitchen table.

We stayed in our pajamas all weekend. We watched movies. We looked for shells on the beach (it hadn’t been plundered by a thousand children like it is in the summer and there were shells a-plenty). I knit (unravelled and reknit the beginning of a scarfy/shawly thing about five times), and read the first half of three different books.  We took turns making meals and didn’t venture out in public the entire time.

As you can imagine I was relaxed and revived after several days of lazy bliss. So the fact that kitchen was an absolute disaster when I got home only made me slightly furious; not incredibly furious as it usually does.

I really love birds. Even seagulls. Turns out they’re sort of cannibalistic and didn’t mind eating some left over chicken.  Ah, look at the joy on my face. Does anyone not like feeding birds? (Yes. Cheryl. Who cowered in the house whenever there were more than ten birds visible at any one time.)
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What’s up with the seagull’s leg?

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We also didn’t bring makeup.

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Odd Picture of the Day

December 13, 2011 · 8 comments

in Misc., Photos of Jennie

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We were walking along and saw a bed. In the woods. So I had Mister take a picture of me on it. That is all.

Catch me while you can!

August 19, 2011 · 7 comments

in Blogging, Good Things, Photos of Jennie

Take a look around. This blog as you know it will be evolving soon. The Blog Fairy has worked her magic and the grand unveiling of my new blog (at a new location, no less!) will be happening presently.

I have a cute new picture, courtesy of The Lucky Red Hen (who is sort of a magician considering how I looked in real life that day.) If you’re in Seattle, you should check her out!

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This shot is oh so appropriate:

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I also have my Facebook page here . I really need a few more people to like so it can be a grown-up’s page with its very own name.

I’m trying to get geared up for my life of delicious freedom which will begin at 8:20 on Monday morning. That is the moment when every single one of my children will be at school.


For seven hours.

I plan on dedicating a little more time and devotion to my blog. As well as spinning around in a field of wildflowers shouting, “wheeeeee!”

Mormon moms on the loose

April 16, 2011 · 12 comments

in Good Things, Photos of Jennie, Vacations

I must say, my 40th birthday has been stellar. The cruise with six of my girlfriends was fantastic (my BFF Tiffany even flew down from the Arctic Tundra of Minnesota for it). We left behind six husbands and 29 children who all survived.

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We departed out of Galveston so we only had to drive a few hours from Austin.

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Our cruise was on Carnival, the vacation equivalent of Golden Corral (a tacky buffet restaurant, for the uniformed). You get what you pay for, and our cruise was cheap. Which was fine. But that meant there were a lot of . . .uh, interesting people on board our ship. I have never seen so many tattoos and fat ladies in bikinis. But this was how we spent most of our time: in lounge chairs reading and talking. And eating. It was glorious.

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We had a lot of fun in Cozumel, Mexico. I did stuff like kissing lizards (no frenching allowed!) . . .

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. . . and driving a dune buggy

. . . and eating freshly made salsa and guacamole on the beach in this cute little hut. Paradise.

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But like I said, we sat around most of the time. Occasionally we napped. And swam. I may or may not have sat in the hot tub eating a plate of french fries and cookies.

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We did not drive children anywhere. We did not cook anything. We did not wipe any bums. We did not make any beds. (I did hang up my wet towels, though. I’m crazy like that.) We spazzed out occasionally because nobody lets loose like Mormon moms without kids. Such occasions call for Nacho Libre masks and rag curlers.

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My transition to the downward-facing side of the hill has been pretty painless. Rock on, 40′s!

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My mirror, my friend

March 16, 2011 · 6 comments

in Good Things, IMO, Jennie Likes, Makeup/Beauty, Photos of Jennie

I am vain. I admit it. You may have noticed due to all the pictures I post of myself. I figure my vanity is OK because I’m pretty diligent with my preparedness. That makes up for it. And I have two callings at church, which also counteracts the amount of time and money I spend on myself. (Actually I’m a brunette who likes being a brunette so monetarily I’m way ahead of all you brunettes who are convinced that you’re really blondes. No highlights and root touch-ups for me, suckers!)

Lately I have been spending an excessive amount of time on my eye makeup (one of these days I’m going to do a tuturial. Really. Because I never got around to it on Makeup Monday) and on my nails. I used to get my (fake) nails done all the time when we lived in Oregon. This was back in the Pre-Cambrian age when I had to drive twenty minutes to get to a nail salon. I can barely remember the time when there wasn’t a nail salon on each corner. Then we moved to Utah and I was still getting my fake nails done. But I noticed that everyone was getting their fake nails done by then. Everyone. Even our fifteen year-old babysitter. And I kind of hated being like all the fake Utah girls (although I don’t have fake boobs or a fake tan so I’m already way better than them*). So I decided to let my nails go natural and boring. Being a nail-biter who loves her bad habit, my nails haven’t looked good since then. My nails are peely and brittle and then there is the whole hangnail issue. Apparently my vanity only made it down to my elbows.

I tend to not bite my nails when they are painted but you know what a drag it is to have to keep up polish. Every day there is something chipping off. What a drag. But, my friends, a miracle has occurred! And its name is Gelish. It’s a brand new type of polish that lasts for two weeks and does not damage your nails at all. It’s true! I have tried it! There are similar types of products such as Shellac (which I’ve heard through the grapevine is not quite as durable). But I am loving my Gelish. It’s sold “to professionals only” and you have to go to a salon that does Gelish to get a manicure. But being a DIY girl through-and-through I bought all the stuff myself off of Amazon and ebay. It’s not cheap. No ma’am. It only cures with a 36-watt UV lamp (at least $75). And the polishes, base coat and top coat are between $15-25 each. But once I figured that I would be doing my nails, plus my girls’, plus my moms’ (who has the most awful nails in the history of the world so her polish only lasts a week), it seemed not too unreasonable.

Plus, as I mentioned, I’m vain. And the promise of having lovely nails for days–no, weeks!–on end is pretty intoxicating.

And I make my own soap and lotion, for crying out loud. So look at all the money I’m already saving! Money that I can now spend on my nails.

It takes a couple of tries to get the hang of applying Gelish. But I’ve been wearing this red polish for nine days already. And this is after spending an hour scrubbing bathtubs with that harsh, nasty cleanser AND painting the hallway in my house (requiring much scrubbing of the hands to remove latex paint) AND doing a whole bunch of crafts involving acrylic paint (again requiring much scrubbing of the hands). Impressive, no?

*I have zero problem with fake boobs. It’s just when it’s combined with fake everything else that it starts to irritate. And if you happen to be smaller than a size 6 I will be especially critical of you. Sorry. (Not really.)

How to create great weather

February 26, 2011 · 14 comments

in Making Stuff, Photos of Jennie, Stuff to Wear, Weather

If you’re suffering from too much snow and frigid temperatures, here is the foolproof way to end them: Knit yourself a lovely scarf. The whole time you’re knitting, the temps will hover in the 20′s. You will knit madly, so excited to finish! Finally the day will come when you cast off the final stitch. That day will be 71º. And it will not be below 65º ever after.

You will not get to wear your fluffy woolen scarf, no matter how pretty it turned out. Everyone else will be so happy to put on flip-flops once again, and it will all be because of you. You, meanwhile, will enjoy staring at your scarf neatly folded on the shelf until next November. Sigh.

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Don we now our gay apparel

December 21, 2010 · 11 comments

in Christmas, Photos of Jennie

Now is the time when I go into a full-on Christmas panic. Lately I have been living my life like somebody pressed the Fast Forward button, so let me just wish you a Merry Christmas today. Not sure I’ll be with it enough on Saturday to remember.

P.S. If I could give you one piece of parenting advice, it’s to dress your children alike as much as possible. For some idiotic reason people will assume that you are a stellar parent because of this one thing. It really makes no sense but the general public will think that you completely have it together if you can come up with some matching sweaters (bonus points for matching the boys with the girls.)

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