Cake Pops

I've been obsessing over these delicious desserts called cake pops. Not only do they look delicious, but they are super cute too.

Here's my first time experimenting with making them - {not as cute, but definitely delicious!}:

Adoption Photo Announcements

My husband and I are waiting for a new little one to join our family through adoption, so these are extra special for me. I love making adoption announcements, it reminds me that one day it'll be my child I'm creating one for. We've been officially waiting for two years. Sometimes it's hard, but one day I'll hold our baby and I've heard that the all the ups and downs just fly right out of your head. So I know how special this moment is for families and I try to reflect that in my designs.

{Find all my adoption announcements here.}
Some examples of my adoption announcements:

Photos from Descanso Gardens

I hung out with my daughter and best friend at Descanso Gardens today. Here are some photos from our day:

{sunflower in the fall/vegetable garden}

{hello fish!}

{pretty flowers - some of the very few still in bloom}

{the little bee that my daughter found and promptly ran away from}

{the stream that we relaxed by}

Butter My Bread

I've become recently intrigued by felt food. It is so cute and since I have a six year old with a fantastic imaginary world, it's also something that can be useful in our home {which is my justification for my obsession}. I've never sewn before so my creations aren't nearly as wonderful and cute as some of the others I've seen, but C has fun with them so that's all that truly matters.

{that's supposed to be butter on that bread}

My Digital Scrapbook

A couple of my favorite digital scrapbook pages that I've made. Maybe next I'll show you a couple pages of my paper scrapbook that I like. I love the digital arts, but there's something about touching paper and feeling the different textures that make scrapbooking fun and worthwhile. So I do a little bit of both paper and digital scrapping. Both of these are digital pages.

Save the Dates

I make customized designs for announcements and invitations that you can print yourself either at any photo store or your own printer at home. This is something that I've been doing for our own family announcements and invitations for years. It's something original and fun and best of all, convenient {not to mention cheaper!}. I enjoy doing it because I found can flex my creative muscle creating these just as much as I do my paper crafts.

Here are some examples from my Save the Date designs, all of which can be found in my Deviant Sheep Designs Etsy shop.

Note: all colors can be changed to match your wedding colors!

{Save the Date with heart calendar}

{funky orange Save the Date}

{Save the Date with butterfly}

My New Mini Photo Studio

Check me out! I'm allowing myself to brag a little bit because - I made myself a mini photo studio. I'm a little bit proud and a lot excited. No more photos of my crafts like this:

{card I made years ago for an anniversary}

{felt chocolate chip cookie made for daughter}

The mini photo studio was made with a cardboard box. I attached fabric to the box with Terrifically Tacky Tape {I love that stuff - it sticks better than anything else I've ever found - and I've tried a lot of tapes; I use it for so many of my crafts}. It was easy to make, but a bit time consuming.



The fabric I used was white felt; I don't know if it's better than other things you can use for a mini photo studio, but I used it because I thought it would be easier to attach to the cardboard box. So far the felt background works just fine.



Now I can rock photos like these:

{photo birth announcement}

{photo save the date announcement - this one is one of my favorites that I've created}

I'm in love with the huge difference in photo quality between when I photographed before and what my mini photo studio does.



Two tips:

• The mini lamp makes a huge difference. I tried taking photos with and without and with the lamp is definitely better.
• I also tried with and without the flash on my camera, and taking the photos with the flash on gives better results also.