Just some pictures

I've been a bit sick this week, so tonight my post will just be some pictures that I have been playing with in Photoshop. I am really enjoying using and learning about this program, and I can't wait to do even more with it! Enjoy!

Holly Berries covered in snow

Mt. Shasta, after the storm

Hot Air Balloon Sillouette

A beautiful rainbow

And what better way to end the day than with a gorgeous sunset...

Goodnight.

~Amber

Birthdays & Baby Showers

The last few weeks have been surprisingly busy, and also a lot of fun. We have had two very full weekends in a row, with the weeks prior filled with planning and getting ready for those weekends. First, we had my Mom's 50th birthday, which I showed some pictures from earlier last week. Below are some more pictures of her wonderful birthday weekend.

My beautiful Momma. The birthday girl.

Make a wish!

Eating her cupcakes.

The cupcakes. Lemon cake, lemon curd filling, and white chocolate lemon frosting. Yum!

This is Mom's favorite of the cakes I make, and it will also be one of the layers in her wedding cake in February.

Months ago, we all asked Mom what she wanted for her 50th birthday. She wasn't sure for awhile, and then she thought of something. She called me one day and said, "I know what I want for my birthday.... I want 50 presents!! One for each year of my life!" And so, our family began planning a birthday celebration that would include 50 presents for my wonderful Mom who deserves that, and oh so much more.

Mom in her new Pea Coat. One of her 50 gifts!

She had gifts big and small, from wine & cooking tools, to bath & body products, to clothes, and family pictures. It was so much fun to see her open all of them, and see how much thought everyone had put into her gifts.

All of Mom's presents.

We just had a small party, which included our immediate family, and some close friends. We made mexican food and margaritas, and just had a great time. We had great music, thanks to the musicians in the family, and later in the evening we had some great laughs while playing games.

My Momma and I.

Mom and my adorable little brother, Zachary.

My nephew Colton, with Mom and Zack.

Overall, I would say it was a huge success. Happy 50th birthday Mom. You are truly and amazing woman, and I am so very blessed to call you not only my Mom, but also my best friend.

I love you!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The following weekend, Erik and I traveled down to Sacramento for a baby shower for our dear friends, Christine & Andrew. Christine and Andrew have an adorable little boy, Oliver, and a little girl on the way, Lucy. Here are some highlights from the baby shower. Christine, I am planning on sending you a CD with all the pictures I have very soon!!

A precious baby blanket.

Miss Christine, looking beautiful!

Here is the cake I made for the shower. I decided to go with a small cake on the top tier, and then cupcakes below. This worked out perfectly, as there were enough cupcakes for everyone, and Christine was able to take the small cake home to enjoy! At Christine's request, the cake was a yummy combination of marble cake, raspberry filling, and white chocolate buttercream. The cupcakes were the same. I hope you loved it Christine!

Christine's cousin hosted the shower, and she did an amazing job! Her home was decorated so beautifully. All the little touches really came together for a wonderful shower. Here are some of my favorite things.

The sweet little favors.

The beautiful centerpieces and table decor.

The adorable baby clothes hung around the room. These mittens were my favorite!

The beautiful pink Gerber Daisies placed all over.

Precious pink pacifiers hanging from the chandelier.

And baby Lucy's name over the fireplace. This was just gorgeous!

Christine & Andrew, it was so great to see you both and celebrate with you. We can't wait to see baby Lucy the next time we visit! Congratulations on a beautiful little family!

Our whole weekend was really wonderful. It is always so nice for us to go visit our friends in the Sacramento area. We may not get to see them as often as we used to, but that makes our time together even more special and enjoyable!

Okay, that's it for me for tonight. I am working on some more pictures in photoshop, and can't wait to post more on that later... until then, Goodnight!

~Amber

Playing in Photoshop

My Photoshop class has started, but we have not actually done anything in Photoshop yet... hopefully next week! In the mean time, I figured I would just mess around with Photoshop a bit, and see what I could teach myself. Here are a few pictures that I have been playing with this evening.

A beautiful flower

The same flower, with a vintage effect added.

Sunset at the lookout near Medicine Lake.

Another evenings sunset at the same spot.

Hopefully we will be starting some lessons in our class next week and then perhaps I will actually know what I am doing! Not too bad for starting out though!

This week has been crazy... My Mom and family left on Monday, and Tuesday was spent recovering from the weekend. Catie and I attempted to go to our ceramics class Tuesday evening, but we were caught in a crazy storm. So, instead of playing with clay, we were playing in the snow and putting chains on the car. The storm has still not stopped, and it is supposed to keep snowing through the weekend! Crazy! Today was spent shopping, cleaning, and baking. I am making a cake & cupcakes for my friend Christine's baby shower on Saturday. Pink is the color for little baby Lucy! Christine has requested marble cake with raspberry filling. Sounds good to me! I got started today, and am excited to continue tomorrow morning. Tomorrow will have lots of baking, along with some organizing. Now I just have to pray that the weather clears up enough for us to get on the road Friday morning!!

**yawn** Ohhh, I am sleepy.

Okay, I think it is time for bed now. If I plan on getting anything done tomorrow I must sleep!

~Amber

A Preview of Blogs to Come....

I don't know about you, but I have had a busy, busy week and weekend! Luckily, a lot was accomplished, and Mom's birthday was a great success… Great food, great music, fun games, and of course, tons of love and laughter! Below are some highlights of the weekend so far. I will post more details and pictures this week. Enjoy!!

This is my little brother. He decided to hang out with our dogs in their crate. He is a big dork.

This is my Momma. Isn’t she beautiful! Ooohhh, and don’t those cupcakes look yummy?? Yes, I made them. More on those later…

Speaking of cupcakes… this is my brig brother Dustin and I, after the great cupcake fight of 2010. mmmmm frosting…..

Here is Mom, by her huge stack of presents. A gift for every year of her life, plus a couple extras!

And of course, no party is complete without music! We have my hubby on the left playing guitar, my brother on the drums, and his friend Bubba on the right also on guitar. Mom’s fiancé Mark also plays the drums, so he and Dustin switched off throughout the night.

That’s all for now. I will have much more later. Have a great weekend everyone!

~Amber

Classes, Cleaning, & Birthday Parties.

Classes started this week at College of the Siskiyous. I finished up my AA last semester, so now I am just taking some classes for fun. I am taking an online Photoshop class and a ceramics class and I am super excited about both. My first ceramics class was tonight, and I am so glad I signed up for it! Tonight, we made our stamps that we will use to stamp the bottom of our pieces so our stuff doesn't get mixed up. It was just a little project, but it was so much fun and so relaxing and therapeutic! I can't wait to really get into both classes and learn more about both of these art forms. I will definitely have some posts in the future revolving around these classes, and what I am learning in them. Yay for learning new things!

Ah, so I have not been posting nearly as much as I would like on this little blog of mine. Soon... soon... At this point, I am simply not posting because I have not yet made good use of my new camera, so I don't have any pictures to post. I don't take pictures a lot of the time because I feel like everything around me is so unorganized and chaotic that I can't even imagine taking pictures. But not for long...

I am on a mission of home organization. This is a little hard for me, as I am naturally kind of a messy person... But, it is coming along. Our living room is now just how I like it, and we have managed to keep it that way for a few weeks now. Yay! Our office/guest room/craft room is getting there, but there are a lot of things to fit in a small place, so it is a bit overwhelming at time. This week, that will change.

You see, my Momma, soon to be Step-Dad (Mark), and adorable little brother (Zachary), will be coming to visit this weekend to celebrate my Momma's 50th Birthday. Happy Birthday Momma!

Momma, Zachary, & Mark. I know, I know. I have the most adorable little brother on earth. Trust me, he knows it too. :-)

That means the office/guest room/craft room needs to be cleaned, organized, and ready for company by Friday afternoon. Part of that process is painting my new desk... but that might have to wait another week or so due to less than perfect weather. :-( Oh well. The room will still look fabulous without a perfectly re-painted desk! Ohhh yes, and I also need to prepare things for Mom's party, and make her an a.m.a.z.i.n.g. cake. Oh, I will be busy, busy, busy.

On that note, these are my goals for the rest of the week:

1. Purge many items that are still boxed, and will most likely never be used anyways.

2. Find homes for all the items that are not being donated/sold/thrown away. ORGANIZE!

3. Wash/fold/put away much laundry.

4. Wrap mucho presents

5. Make a birthday cake

6. Make some jewelry for my Momma

7. Clean, clean, clean. Oh, and clean.

I think all that is pretty doable. I work best under pressure anyways! Plus, I am really excited about how nice it will be to really be fully 'moved in' (i.e. no boxes!) and also to actually know where all of our stuff is for once! I am also excited about making Mom's cake, and hopefully recording the process here. That may take up a few posts, so be sure to come back by and check in this week and next! For now, I am going to go get some rest so that I can wake up early tomorrow and get to work!

Good night all!

~Amber

A post while I wait for my new camera!

My new camera arrives Friday... YAY! I am so very excited!! I can't wait to get started taking pictures of the things I have made and start selling on Etsy and posting more often on here as well. This week, I made a light box to use once my camera arrives. A light box is used to take great pictures of items indoors without using a flash. This especially works great with Macro photography, which I will be doing a lot of when taking pictures of jewelry for my Etsy store. There are a few different ways to make a light box, so check out the links HERE, HERE, and HERE for some ideas. The one HERE is the one I used.

My light box

Today, I am staying busy getting my house clean and organized for a small dinner we are having tomorrow with some friends. I am really looking forward to it! I have always thought that the best way to get your house clean is to invite people over! I don't know about you, but people coming over for dinner is always a great motivation for me to get off my behind, and get to cleaning! In this case, that also means unpacking the last few boxes, and organizing my new craft area. Fun, fun, fun!

Since I don't have my new camera, I figured I would just post some older pictures. So, allow me to introduce you to my Husband, Erik, and my children... that is, my furry, four legged children!

My Hubby, and his guitar at Medicine Lake. He is such a talented musician, and I just love it when he plays for me. Oh, how I love that man!!

Here we are, in December 2009. 5 1/2 years married, and going strong!

Our younger pup, Shelby, is part Black Lab, and part Great Dane we believe. She is about a year old, and she loves to sleep in the back window of our car.... even now, when she is WAY to big to be up there! Shelby is just about 1 year old and is still very much a puppy! She can be crazy at times, but she can also be quite a sweet girl. :-)

This is Cammie, our older pup. She is a Black Lab mix of some kind. She is about 2 1/2 years old. This dog has completely stolen my heart. She is so sweet and just loves to snuggle. She has very tender, loving eyes.

When we first brought Shelby home, Cammie wasn't quite sure what to think! But now, they are best buds.... most of the time at least!! Shelby is a little hyper for Cammie's taste sometimes. It cracks me up when they get jealous of the one another when one is getting attention for Erik or I!

So, that is our little family. No human kids for us yet, but I am sure those will come in the next few years. For now, I love our little house with my wonderful husband, and my two sweet doggies.

~Amber