Mermaid Party

Bren's 3rd birthday party was last weekend, so I'm officially a week late in posting these.  Darn photoshop, it distracted me. The party was held at a local pool and was Mermaid themed.  Now, you're probably thinking that Bren must love The Little Mermaid.  At least, that was my first thought.  The truth is that Bren has never even seen The Little Mermaid.  What she has seen, though, is the Dora mermaid book and if there's one thing that Bren loves, it's Dora.  And that's how the mermaid theme came about.

The only problem?  All mermaid decorations have Ariel on them.  But they're all just mermaids to Bren, right?  So Ariel got invited to the party.

Ariel even showed up on some balloons.  At first, the arrangement of balloons was looking a little...let's see, how should I say this...a little mature for a three-year-old party.

They quickly got rearranged.  Phew!  Close call!

Bren was so excited for her birthday party that she didn't sleep at all the night before.  She also invited everyone she saw at church that morning to the party.  The highlight was probably when she told not just Mimi, but Mr. Tony also, to be sure they wore their bikinis.

Because she was so hippity, hoppity, bouncing-off-the-walls excited about the party, her dad had to take her for a little ride while her mom decorated the patio at the pool.  When her dad finally brought her back, a few guests had already arrived and wouldn't you know, little Miss Excited got a little shy.

At one point during the party prep, Bren told her mom that she hoped she had a crown at her party so she could be a princess.  Her mom came through for her.

Bren may need a lesson or two from Kate Middleton because when the crown was placed on her head, she could no longer move.  I suppose it's tricky keeping it balanced just right.

Parker arrived around this time and it was a relief to see that yes, the Royal Princess was indeed accepting hugs from her people.

Thank goodness, because I don't think this little guy would've taken no for an answer.

Parker convinced Brennie to ditch the crown so they could go swim.  This summer, Parker has turned into quite the swimming fool.  He refuses to wear floaties and loves it when his daddy throws him up in the air - the higher, the better.

My mom, bless her, has a teeny tiny heart attack every time she sees Parker go flying through the air, but then his little head pops up out of the water with a grin from ear to ear.  "Do it again!"

Hopefully she missed seeing him climb up on his daddy's shoulders and jump all the way down to his uncle.  It might've been enough to send her over the edge.

I wandered over to the kiddie pool to see how Miss Brennie was doing.  She was having fun playing with all of her buddies.

It didn't take her long to figure out how to work this water gun, making it no longer safe for me and my camera. I had to get out of there fast!

Bren did eventually join us out at the big pool to watch Parker jump off the diving board.  I asked if she wanted to do it too and, after thinking it over, she decided that was not really in her plans for the day.

The rest of the party played out like you expect - lots of swimming, splashing, and cannon balls.  We had a dinner of hot dogs and chicken strips and then finally, it was time to for dessert.

The birthday girl had her own special plate.

She chose a strawberry cupcake.

Like most kids at their birthday party, she never took her eyes off the candle.

She did, however, sing Happy Birthday to herself while watching that candle.

Hooray!  She blew out all the candles!  I hope whatever she wished for comes true!

I wonder if she wished she could eat all that pink icing, because if she did, that wish already came true.

Parker had a funfetti cupcake and by the time I turned around after taking this picture of him and his mommy, Bren had herself a funfetti cupcake too.  Birthday Princesses get all the cupcakes they want!

While most of the kids ran out and jumped back in the pool, Bren stayed inside to open her gifts.  Who can swim when there are so many presents?

In addition to the Card Table Tent, my family and I got Bren this mermaid barbie.

Yes, those are belly and arm tattoos you see on Mermaid Barbie.  As if they aren't awesome enough like that, when you take Mermaid Barbie for a swim in the bathtub, she looks like this.

Her tattoos grow and her pink highlights show up!  Every mom's dream gift for their sweet little three-year-old girl, right?  Beth, I'm sorry.  It was the only Mermaid Barbie.  Please forget all about this gift when/if I ever have a little girl...

Oh, and that's not all.  Mermaid Barbie's tail can also be converted into a mini-skirt / hoodie combo.  You know, for when she'd rather walk instead of swim.  Don't worry, you can still see her arm tat.

The good news is that Mermaid Barbie, skankalicious as she may be, is the birthday gift ranking near the top of Bren's list.  Beth texted me last night to say that Mermaid Barbie sleeps with Bren every night and has even made a trip to the zoo and out to eat with the family.  Here she is with Bren (in her new mermaid pajamas) ready for a good night of sleep.

I guess I put my camera away during the present opening because that's where my photos end.  Sadly, I don't have any of Uncle Doc painting her nails with her new purple and green polish, nor do I have any of all the dads that had somewhat of a contest jumping off the diving board at the end of the party.  Oh well, there's always next year.

Happy 3rd birthday, Bren!

Photoshop Day 7

The challenge was to post photoshopped pictures for seven days straight and I was going strong for the first 6!  Now it's after 8 pm on the 7th day and I'm rushing to squeeze this post in at the last minute so I can say I met my goal.  I didn't get to play in photoshop at all last night so I've just done these last photos very quickly.  I may have to revisit them at a later date and try again because these were the ones I've been wanting to play with since I first got photoshop.  Let's get to it... Alternate title for this post could be "The Seasons, According to Bren" or something like that.  Every time Bren is at my parents' house, all she wants to do is "fwing," so I have tons of pictures of her on the swingset.  These swing pictures could almost be her own version of a growth chart.

Here are the original straight-out-of-camera shots.

The pictures are arranged in order of the seasons, not necessarily her age.  I think she's the youngest in the summer one, and the spring one might be the most recent.

Here are the touched-up photos...a little sharpening and color boosting, and then just an added text box for the season.

Do you have a favorite Bren season?  I can't decide.  I really like the picture quality in the Fall one (like how you can see all her little hairs flying) but I like her smile in Spring.  The Fall one's cute too, and her fuzzy legs in the Summer one kinda make me laugh...

Photoshop Day 6

I couldn't decide what picture to play with for today's post, so I scrolled back through the ones I've already done.  Then it hit me...duh!  I'm missing one of my favorite cuties: Jett! This picture is actually from last summer.  After dinner at our house one night, we walked down to the playground around the corner and the kids played hard while I snapped photos.  This pic of Jett is one of my favorites; it hangs on our fridge.

First, I did all the same steps that I did on Bren for Photoshop Day 1.  I slightly sharpened the whole photo, boosted the colors, brightened the eyes, and then selectively sharpened some of the details on his face and the swing (that chain was a pain!).  I tried to dial it all down a tidge this time, though, so it wouldn't seem too fake.

Once I was satisfied with all of those adjustments, I decided to run some more of the Pioneer Woman's actions to see what they looked like.

First, I ran the Sepia Tone action.  Of course, I know was sepia tone is, so I kinda knew what this one was gonna do.  Instead of it being straight up brown-tones, though, I scaled it back a hair so a little of the color still showed through.

Next, I took off the sepia layer and applied an action called Heartland.  I had no idea where this was going to go.  I feel like it was kinda like putting on a pair of lightly tinted sunglasses.  Everything is just kinda less bright.

This next one is called Vintage and I think it makes sense.  The photo looks kinda grainy, like an older photo.

The last one I tried is called Old West, and the outcome is not at all what I would've guessed it to look like.  I think it made the picture look warmer and softer but without losing its sharpness, if that's even possible.

I've changed my mind several times, but right now I think my favorite version is Old West.  What about you?  Which one do you like best?

Photoshop Day 5

Today's photo edit is really nothing fancy, but it's a picture that I think is funny so I'm sharing it anyway. Meet Lolli, my crazy, floppy-eared puppy.  She's smilin' atcha.

My photoshop edits are barely noticeable...just a boost of colors, a little bit more definition in her fur, and that wonky hair in her eye is gone.

She's got an appointment today to get all of her hair buzzed off one more time before fall.  Can't wait to see my almost-bald pup-pups later this afternoon!

Card Table Tent

I'm excited to finally reveal the card table tent, also known as the super secret project that my mom and I have been working on! But first, let's back up.  Waaaay up.  All the way to March.  That's when my sister-in-law, Bren's mom, emailed me a link to this super cute idea.  It was one of those afternoons where it was clear neither of us felt like being at work, as we kept sending fun links back and forth to each other.  With this particular link she wrote, "This is so cute!  I'd never get around to making one but Aunt Lucy might!"

Y'all, it's like she was daring me to do it.  Game on.

That was March.  At the time I thought, "Brennie's birthday isn't until August.  This will be a fun project for me to tackle over the summer."  And then the summer got busy with things like trips to the beach, weddings, and that really big surprise party we threw.  Before I knew it, it was the last week of July and I was just a couple weeks out from Bren's birthday.

I did some googling to refresh my myself on the project and ended up finding this handy tutorial.  At just thirteen bucks, I ordered the pattern without hesitation.  Sure couldn't hurt to have the dimensions listed out for me, right?

Here's the picture from the pattern that I would be recreating for my favorite 3-year-old little girl.

Cute, isn't it?  The idea is to make a fabric playhouse that fits right over the top of a standard card table.  Then it can be folded up and put away easily.  Genius!

Originally, I thought I'd try to tackle this sewing project by myself.  I knew my mom would be super impressed with me if I could pull it off.  But then the pattern came in and I started reading through it and there were a lot of words in there I didn't know.  Plus, time was running out.

I sprung the idea on my mom the weekend I stayed at her house.  I had a feeling she'd think it was cute but I didn't realize how excited she'd be about it.  We headed to JoAnn's first thing that Saturday morning and ended up spending over three hours there!  We decided to go with a pink and green color scheme so that it'd match Bren's room, and in addition to being the right shades of those colors, we also wanted them to be cheap.  We spent a lot of time pulling bolts of fabric and then putting them back before we were finally ready to stand in the ridiculously long line to get them cut.

Later that night, my parents had a wedding to attend so, since I was left to entertain myself, I went ahead and got started cutting out all the pieces.  The nice thing about having the pattern is that it had all the detail pieces drawn to scale so I could just trace them onto a piece of Wonder Under and then iron it to my fabric.  No guesswork - my kind of project.

Now, some of you that have been reading along for a while may be a little confused about the hint I gave.  How do a tree, door, and mailbox fit into this project?  Well, I never said they were a real tree, door, and mailbox.  I'm sneaky like that.

See?  Here's the tree laid out on the kitchen table after I'd cut out all the individual pieces.

I have to say, I had the easy job for this project.  I did all the tracing and cutting out while my mom did all the sewing.  She even took it one step further than the pattern and lined it so you wouldn't see all the seams on the inside.

I didn't do a very good job of photographing all the steps, but here's a shot of one side laid out on the table.

The whole tent is made out of fabric except for those flowers.  We did those out of felt so that we could just sew them down in the middle for a 3-D effect without having to worry about the edges fraying.

We barely got the tent finished in time for the birthday party.  In fact, we were tacking on the curtains just a couple hours before the party started.  Here's where I goofed again.  I should've taken some good pictures of it at my mom's house.  Since I didn't do that, all my pictures were taken while dodging the birthday girl and her friends as they crawled in and out of it.  I apologize in advance for the poor quality of the pictures - it's super cute in real life!

The tree wraps around a corner, in between two windows complete with shutters and curtains.

Close up of window.

The opposite side has the two bushes with felt flowers.

The address for Bren's playhouse is her birthday: August 18.

To the left of her front door is a light.

And to the right is this really cute mailbox.

It even has a pocket so she can receive mail!  I had every intention of putting her birthday cards in the mailbox, but then I forgot.  Bad, Aunt Lucy.

You can see in this picture of the front that my mom lined the hole for the door in white to make it look like a door frame.  (You can also see the doorbell in this picture.)

I waited til the tent cleared out before sticking my head in to get a picture of the inside.  The inside is lined in white even though it looks pink from the sun shining through in this picture.  The curtains are one of my favorite parts of the playhouse.  They're a super cute polka dot on the outside and then lined with this cute green fabric on the inside.  They're tied together with a piece of pink ribbon and then tacked down to the window frame so they don't move.

I'm not 100% sure, but I think the birthday girl liked it.  Here she is sticking her head out to tell us to come in and play.

Later on in the afternoon, I caught her 6-year-old cheetoh-eating brother hanging out in the tent.  Busted!

So there you have it - our first attempt at the card table tent.  There's a good chance you'll get to see our second attempt at it very soon.  It was a fun project to work on and I hope Bren has fun playing in it!

More pictures from Bren's birthday party coming soon!