Fire Trucks and Black Background Photography

My husband has been trying to develop a Toy Fire Truck for his Etsy shop. The first two were a bit miss proportioned but after a lot of yelling (he is still a retired Sailor first) he came up with a good one.

While I was in the Black and White Photo Class it was a combined class with 2nd semester students also in the class. Me being me, I would go over and see what their projects were and one of their projects was Product Photography. I fell in love with the photo's one of the girls was taking, she was doing everything on Black.

To Photograph the Fire Trucks I thought I would give a black background a try. Here are a few of the shots:

It really helped in being able to Photograph the very light color wood. Then my cat walked by and I captured this one in a million shot, Kitty rubbing on the Fire Truck Ladder:

The black background really helps the subjects. There is no way this picture would look like that on white.

~Sonia Barton

Wordless Wednesday...Santana&Feather Bed

When you go off to do laundry for several hours, you shouldn't leave your feather bed exposed to a puppy, especially if it already has a tear in it.

~Sonia Barton

Happy New Year

I hope you all had a wonderful New Years celebration. I hardly ever stay away until mid-night, and this year was no different I was in bed when the guns started going off, and the dogs started barking. After 30 minutes of that everything got quite again, and I went back to sleep.

2011 was an interesting year for me, my little identity crisis has lasted way to long, I think it has moved into the mid-life crisis definition by now. I do still want to get a BA in Art, but have come to the realization that going to school during the day is a must in order to complete the classes I need to graduate. So for 2012 that goal will be put on hold.

What will need to happen in 2012 is I will need to find a large source of income, so I'm currently looking for a night job, to add to the day job. My daughter will be going on a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints when she turns 21 in June, to begin with she will need a new wardrobe because she never really busy skirts and the one's she has I wouldn't call presentable.

So for 2012 I will be posting about all the sewing I will be doing to build a Female Missionary Wardrobe, I've already made one skirt which I will post soon, I can't sew to much until I know what part of the world she will end up in. I can foresee a lot of sewing happening in the month of May.

Getting my child on a Mission will be the focus of 2012. And hopefully in June there will be a week long trip to Utah, I'll drop her off and then go explore what Utah has to offer, another reason I want to have a good size savings account. If you know of any Part time jobs feel free to send them my way.

I wish you all the best for the New Year.

~Sonia Barton

Barbie clothes Gift for my Nieces

Growing up I loved all things Barbie. I remember wanting a Barbie house, I had a couple of Barbies and a plastic Barbie suitcase that fit the Barbie and her clothes, with these tiny hangers. I never did get a Barbie dollhouse it was to expensive. My father did buy me a cardboard Strawberry Shortcake doll house for Christmas one year, it didn't last very long. The Barbies could only sit in the rooms of the cardboard house.

I passed along the love of all things Barbie to my daughter, and I have a feeling I might be doing the same thing to my nieces.

My handmade gift to my nieces this year was Barbie clothes. Awhile ago The Crafty Mummy posted a link of a pattern she tested for The Craft Barn. And I'm not one to reinvent the wheel, I do change it most of the time, but if I can avoid it I hardly ever start from scratch to learn something.

I had never sewn Barbie clothes before, and knew because of the small scale there had to be a different construction process to the sewing of Barbie clothes. Tonya gave it a great review so I bought the pattern.

It worked out great, wonderfully written with step by step photographs, no guess work as to what comes next, or how did they get there. Well worth the 4 bucks.

I only did the peasant blouse, the skirt and the pants. I wanted to keep them modest. But the pattern also comes with a Shirred dress and Tube Top pattern.

Thank you all for visiting here. I hope you all have a Happy New Year.

~Sonia Barton

Hand sewn gifts for my nephews...

I have 5 nephews. My brother beto has two boys, my brother roy has two boys and my sister monica has one boy. As many of you know there have been hard financial times around here, just like every where else. So a couple Christmas's ago I decide to start making Handmade gifts for everyone. Works out just fine, I have a fabric and yarn stash that can last me for several decades of Christmas gifts. It doesn't help that I don't stop buying fabric and yarn.

I have come to the conclusion that sewing for boys is hard. Not hard as in the sewing is hard, but hard as in What the heck do I sew for boys. Plus the oldest of the 5 boys is now 10 years old, we actually had a conversation about BO when I went to drop off his gift. So needless to say they are older boys.

I was grateful when I came across this blogpost from noodlehead:

A tutorial on how to make a basic boys wallet, She went all out and added pieces of leather and grommets. Feel free to visit her site and check out the tutorial, it was very well written.

Here are the one's I came up with:

I'll show you what I made for my nieces tomorrow.

New Christmas Wreath

We have had the same Christmas wreath for over 10 years. On the day after Thanksgiving when we pull out all the Christmas ornaments and go buy a tree, I noticed it was missing. I asked my husband what had happened to it. The decorations are stored in the garage, which is his area, so only he would know where it would have gone.

His response: "you mean the ball of wires with green twigs hanging from it?" Yes honey that one. "I thought it was trash I through it away the last time I organized the garage."

Interesting, now I have to make one. So what does one do in this day and age to find inspiration? Well you go to Pinterest of course!

Here's what I found for inspiration, plus I found a tip that you could use foam tubing from a home improvement store instead of having to pay $5 and up for a circle form at the craft store.

This is what I came up with, I'm ok with it, except, I have a feeling I'm going to give this one away, and make another one with a thicker foam circle. The tube I bought was just way to thin.

Or maybe the circle just needs to be smaller. Not sure, but what I am sure of is that this one isn't getting put away with the Christmas stuff until I figure out how to make it pop.

~Sonia Barton