I was featured!

Hey so this is kinda a weird post, but I was so stinkin' excited. I was recently featured somewhere! The DIY lace baby romper I made last year, has been featured here....

I was super excited about this so I just wanted to share:) If you would like to see the actual tutorial for it, you can find it HERE. I think that I might re-vamp this, and try it again this year, and fix the things I didn't like about it. Anyways, if you have time check it out.There are some great rompers in the post, that I want to try myself! Click the disney baby picture to see the website post!

-XO

Amanda

DIY Cake Plate

I recently had my first cake smash photo session. It was so fun, and this little one year old couldn't have been any cuter:) I wanted a cute cake plate to display the cake her momma was working so hard on. I searched online everywhere, and really couldn't find anything I loved for a decent price. So I set out to make one. Here is how it turned out:

It was easy to do, and the process is similar to another craft I have blogged about. I made my pedestals the same way in this tutorial HERE. 

Make one for yourself! It makes a great display for all kinds of food, and the materials are cheap, and usually easy to find in a local thrift store.

(Disclaimer: This is not dishwasher safe. Gentle wipe/ hand wash only...)

Here are the materials I used: 

( please excuse the crappy I-phone photo, it was all I had on me....)

* Gorilla glue

* Candlestick base ( mine was metal, but wood or plastic would work too)

* Charger plate or a platter ( mine is plastic)

* Spray paint ( not pictured)

I just glued them together using the gorilla glue. I made sure that the base was centered in the middle of the plate, so that it would balance correctly. I set lots of heavy books on top, and gave it a day to dry.

After they were dry, and all glued together, I painted it with white spray paint. I made sure to get the kind that bonds to plastic, wood, and metal, because my base was metal, and my top was plastic. 

THAT IS IT!!!! EASY PEAZY!

I found both of these things at goodwill, for $1 each. These charger plates used to be more expensive a few years ago, and now there are TONS in thrift stores everywhere. They are usually with the christmas decor stuff. When looking for a base, I recommend getting a candlestick base that is as wide and short as you can find. Too tall of a base may cause whatever you put on it to tip over easier. The wider base will give it more support too. Here are some more photos from the shoot...

If you want to see more from this shoot, you can see more on my website HERE. It was so much fun, and I loved how girly, and frilly it turned out. It also stayed standing regardless of her mashing her cake all over it. It cleaned up with water too. ENJOY!

-Amanda

Mantle Monday No. 6 Valentines Day

Hey! I feel like it really has been forever since I shared a mantle for mantle Monday! I was excited to do something valentines Day themed, but also wanted to spend very little doing it. So I scrounged all over my house for things that would fit my chosen color scheme and style. I went with simple, and not too much pink, just a little "kiss"" of it..( pun intended...) So here it is!!

Entire front view of the mantle... The wall is looking more grey everyday! I love it...at first I thought it was too blue, but it is so calming....

Side view:  White Distressed Candlestick- Goodwill-$3.99 Brown Candlestick base- Goodwill $2.99
Tin bucket small- Ikea Frames and white artwork- goodwill all less than $8.00 together.

I took this photos to spell love. I have been trying to build a "photography alphabet" and recently finished. I sold some at my recent craft fair and had these left over. They are just found objects that looked like letters. Love the way this turned out. I found this frame at a local thrift shop for $3.00 ! matte included. I snatched it up having this in mind from the beg. I will display it way past the holiday. The frame on the left was another goodwill find. I cut out some card stock hearts, and sewed them together using a chain feeding method( just feeding the hearts into the needle in one continuous thread.) Then I cut and taped them into the frame. I like how the brown frame matched the brown candlestick. Tried to have at least 2 of every color I used so there was familiarity.

I had this base which was a $2.99 find at goodwill. I wanted a pom or ball on top and was going to make one, them I remembered I had these. I used them for my daughter's birthday in December and I had two pink and two white. I got them at walmart for 0.99 each I think. They come flat and you open and they have sticky stuff to hold them open...EASY!

More of the pomander balls from Walmart  and a cute little wire basket I found at .... yes goodwill again....I LOVE IT. Looked like a little basket to collect farm eggs or something but I ADORE IT> Love keys to and had this laying around and threw it in.

I Found this urn at a thrift store and re-painted it. See tutorial HERE. I made this garland out of old book pages and just sewed them together on my sewing machine.

A view of the book page garland hanging in the front. Love it, and will display probably often.

Well that is it! Happy v-day!

-Amanda

Linking to:

Tidy Mom

-15 below zero & snappin' away...

So recently I just started a photography business here in my little town. It has been almost 8 months coming. I was learning and getting my portfolio a little more stocked. Finally after what has felt like FOREVER I launched my site, and got a business license. Needless to say that is what has been eating all of my time lately. Here are a few of my most recent photos. My little girl just turned one at the end of december and so it was time for her one year shoot. I found this to be hard since it is SO DANG cold outside here. I think the thermostat said -15 when I woke up this morning. So we only got a few good shots before her little nose and hands turned red, and she started to quiver cry....:( I felt awful. 

Well here is the link to my site. Check it out. 

http://amandaconleyphotography.com/

I also have a facebook page HERE. Like me, and you can follow all of the fun shoots we embark on.

Stay tuned for the regularly schedule posting to pick up again soon.:) mantle monday already in the making for next week.

-peace/love-

Amanda

Mantle Monday No.5-What I am thankful for...

Welcome to Mantle Monday no.5 I thought in light of Thanksgiving this week, I would do a mantle including some of the things that I am grateful for. I wanted to keep the colors pretty neutral, and fresh. So I chose brown and white as my color pallet. Here it is...

This frame is one that I made for a recent craft fair. I hung pictures of my daughter, and me holding her on it, because she is literally my everything, and I can never have enough pictures of her displayed throughout the house.

This is my newest little wreath I made. I am going to give it to my sister for Christmas  she just does not know it yet:) hee hee(!) I am thankful for talents, and the time I get to create.

This is my newest lamp creation. I really enjoy lighting and everything to do with it. This one I did for fun a few weeks ago. It is made out of old book pages. For this one, I am grateful for education, and the opportunity that I had get a good education. There will be a tutorial for this light and one like it very, very soon.

wanna make a pedestal ? tutorial HERE

so, my sister Heather Carey was in town for thanksgiving. It was time for Mantle Monday and I wanted her help with it. Well she actually did this whole thing, and I love the way that it turned out. I chose the color palette  and laid out a bunch of stuff, and she did the rest. I wanted the mantle to showcase things that I am thankful for, and I think she did a great job. She also has a blog with lots of crafty things HERE. Check her out. She is great agt couponing, creating, and has a cool old house they are fixing up. She also takes special orders if you see something that you like. Well that is it!! HAPPY TURKEY DAY!
-Amanda

6 things to know before doing a craft fair...

Hey, so as you may have noticed, I have been slacking majorly on the whole blog thing. I have thought about it every day for almost 2 weeks. I know this does not count for much, but I was taken hostage by the craft fairs. IT TOOK OVER MY LIFE!!!!! I had a great time and made a pretty penny, but I have not done anything else for almost a month! I am so pooped, and ready to be done. I  might have one more this Friday and Saturday  and then I get to start crafting for Christmas!!

The last post I wrote was about the Halloween invites. Halloween was fantastic, and we had a great party. Here is us in our Halloween costumes on our "pumpkin steps" ( Notice the lovely pumpkins that we spent hours painting. THANK YOU to Georgia Brown for all of the help  in this:) I wanted everything to look perfect for the party, and was trying to be a perfect host. Everything did not happen, but we got lots done, and had a great night...

 We dressed up as tigerlilly, peter pan, and tinkerbell.... so fun. I made mine and Nick's costume by repurposing clothes from the thirft store. Total cost less then $10 for both of us.Wanna see more pics? here is the link to my facebook album:

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151311707244744.541710.727284743&type=1&l=510bf6039c

Ok.... moving on... The craft fairs. The first one took place here in our town. It was my first one ever. I joined in a booth with my friend and her sister. I was super fortunate to get to pair up with such talented people. We did pretty well overall. Georgia made some yummy caramel apples and cute wooden signs. Her sister, Tonie, did the hair bows, which are SSOOO cute. I snagged a few for Khloe. I made the lights and home decor stuff. Our booth was packed...

a chevron tray, bottle,  some yarn "wish poms" and burlap roses I made.

some of the lights I made.

a side view of the booth

a front view

Georgia's wonderful caramel apples were a big hit!!

Georgia with a quick pose:)

my baby looking at my cards:)

Georgia and her sister Tonie

We had a fun two days, and might do it again next year...

The second craft fair was just this last weekend. I got to do it with my sister. We met up and did it in Rigby Idaho. IT WAS AMAZING!! There were so many people there, it was impossible not to feel claustrophobic  and also SO EXCITED all at the same time.  My sister is super talented at typography  and really has a great eye for graphic design. She made all of the wooden vinyl blocks and did the designs herself. She did really well. I made more lights, including some from spoons,  wax paper ( tutorial coming soon:) , and coffee filters.I also painted a ton of frames, and did some of my wooden sign boards. Here is our booth!!

some of her stuff, and some of mine... I made the bird stuff, and canvas', she made all the typography signs

this glitter one is my fav.

our neighbors right next to us... they were so fun.

my sisters stuff... isn't it cute?

my little table of goodies

a outside the booth view

here is our whole booth!! There was so much stuff in the beg.!! I love our little booth sign:)

We got so excited when people actually wanted to come in and look at our stuff. We really love words of affirmation. We both were so excited that we asked our first customers if we could snag pictures with them to post here.

Here is my sister with her first sale!

and here is me with my first sale!

We had so much fun, and this is def. the craft fair to do. I think that the Idaho falls one might be good for next time too, I hear it is HUGE!.

So I am no expert or anything but here are a few tips that I have for anyone interested in joining a craft fair to make it successful!!

1.) start planning early:

I lost a lot of sleep staying up late trying to get everything done the few nights before.  ( I got 6 hours of sleep in 48 hours!! I know crazy...) Start at least a month in advance and make things here and there, to lessen the stress last minute. 

2.) re-arrange/ bring stock:

We noticed that after stuff would sell the booth would start to look a little bare, and well...horrible. We also noticed that a lot of the things at the back of the booth were getting lost, and not noticed. When something sold up front, we moved up something from the back and then replaced the back item with something we had in stock under the table. As soon as we did this the thing we moved up would sell first! It is a nice rotation of stuff, and lets everything get seen.

3.) Plan for trouble:

Moving so much stuff multiple times to get it there really took a toll on the stuff. We arrived with things un-glued, or crunched, even though we were SUPER careful. Bring stuff to fix things. We brought a hot glue gun, scissors, yarn, paint and a brush, glue stick etc. and we needed it. Lots of things came unglued because the cold air froze the glue, and even a vinyl letter got scraped off and my sister was able to fix it and sell it.

4.) Bring business cards:

Everyone who liked our stuff was asking for a business card, and we didn't have one. We ended up hand writing a bunch while sitting at our booth to hand out. So something even just printed out with your contact info would be super helpful. I have gotten a few custom orders this way.

5.) Practice:

Practice setting up your booth before you get there. We did this and it saved so much time in set up. We tried to make our booth look as appealing as possible, and brought in cute shelves and stands, electricity, and a booth sign. So many people commented on how they liked our booth. We did it for cheap too. Pieces of wood for $1 from the Ikea AS- IS  bin became shelves and backdrops. One thing I didn't practice though was doing a debit transaction through the device I got for my i- phone. ( You can find the device HERE.) I got there and had lots of people asking if I took debit and when I tried it didn't work because my phone was not updated correctly.:(

6.) Be optimistic:

Every craft fair is different. At my first one the beg, was slow and I sold everything the last two hours. The second one was opposite. Don't get discouraged if things are not selling right away. Most people who show interest in your stuff still want to see everything in the fair before purchasing, I had a lot of people walk around and come back! It is easy to get down at first, but things will usually pick up at some time.

well that is it! glad I could share. Have any more advice? I would love to hear it! I am opening an Etsy account soon, as I was advised to from some of my customers at the fair. Look for it in my blog soon.  

Happy Craft Fair Season!

-Amanda

Mantle Monday No.4- Hint of green

Here is my newest Mantle! I have been dying to do something with chevron, and here it is!! Just a hint of fresh lovely green......

The entire mantle from the front..
 I tried to make three things at least the same height all the way across so that it looked like there was some similarities between the items. The apple barrel basket, white vase with flowers, and twine wrapped bottle were all about the same height. I started by centering the vase and wreath and worked out from there. I wanted a variety in height and texture. I also wanted to have it be a little more minimalistic than my previous ones. So I left a little wall showing behind things, and a few spaces. As far as texture I love chevron, and having it look distressed. I like the look of the two colors brown and black together. Since everything else was brown and neutral though I needed another black grounding item, so I added the lantern on the opposite side of the black and white chevron. The music print wreath and burlap added some intresting texture and the poms added a hint of softness. I like this mantle and wanna keep it up forever. It makes me think of fall but a fresh fall, and different than the traditional oranges and reds...

I got these little woven apples at goodwill 3 for 3 dollars!!! love the hint of green:) I also repainted this gold lantern black I got it at a thrift store for 75 cents!! I made the chevron  board using painters tape at 4" pieces, I eyeballed the pattern, painted it and then distressed it. 

I got this apple barrel basket at a local shop for 50 cents. I cut up some burlap, placed it over something in the barrel to give height and stuck some apples on top so they could be seen. The green frame was black and I dry brushed it with this olive green color. I like how the apples and the frame were different shade of green. They kinda tied together a fresh look in a different way. I got the letter "c" for Conley:) for 50 cents at goodwill, just how it is.

This vase also again came from a thrift store. Love it... I made the burlap rose and "wish poms" as I call them. The total cost was super cheap because I cut the branches out of my front yard to glue into the yarn poms. I will do a tutorail soon. They are super easy. The roses I learned awhile ago. There is a great tutorial for them HERE.

I made this music sheet wreath with an old music book that I got a a local thrift and it  was already looking kinda aged. I like how it turned out.

I made this black and white chevron, using an old IKEA board that I got for super cheap, and then repainted. I tried to layer and lean a lot of things over each other to get a more interesting look.

close up of the apples

I wrapped an old soda bottle with twine, and hot glue, and stuck a wish pom in it. The great part is that it can hold water, because it is glass, so I can put real flowers in it too. I thought the color of the twine matched the apple barrel basket nicely.

Both chevrons together. One black and white, and one brown and white.

Well that it is! Happy Mantle Monday!!