Painted Rock - Ink Dogwood

I painted this small river rock with my white acrylic paint.  Then I used my fine tip Micron pen to draw the dogwood.

Pink Strawberry Rice Krispie Treats

I love Rice Krispie Treats and this recipe is a little bit of a twist on something I saw on Pinterest.   For my recipe I decided to do a strawberry flavor!  You use your regular cereal box recipe and replace white marshmallows for strawberry ones!  And you add some dry strawberry cake mix and some sprinkles!

• 6 cups rice krispies

• 3 tbsp butter

• 10 oz bag of strawberry marshmallows

• 1 cup strawberry cake mix (dry)

• sprinkles

Before you begin, spray a large cookie sheet with butter flavored cooking spray (or regular flavor).
1. melt your butter in large pot over low heat.
2. add marshmallows.

3. stir and stir til melted

4. as they start getting pretty melted add in your cake mix a spoonful at a time and stir really good.

5. notice the beautiful shade of pink.

6. add in rice krispies and keep stiring.

7. continue to stir and sprinkle in the sprinkles!

8. remove from heat, turn off stove and spread onto cookie sheet using your clean fingers!

9. YUM!

10. If you plan to cut pieces out with cookie cutters, do it quickly while it's still warm and easy to press.  Otherwise, cut into squares with a knife!

Hope you enjoy this perfect Valentine's treat!

Basil Herb Embroidered Dish Towel

I bought a set of plain dish towels with a blue border and a set of iron on transfers and embroidered this easy dish towel! Made a great gift! Fun and easy!

Dream Embroidery Pillowcases

I like the color scheme of this pillowcase set! I start with a dark blue pillowcase and drew on my pattern with a white chalk pencil. Then I embroidered with various colors! Turned out cute I think!

Modge Podge trays from napkins!

I bought this set of nested wooden trays from Hobby Lobby and a pack of pretty napkins and some modge podge!  I separated the 2 layers of the napkin and used the printed piece for my project.  I started with my sponge brush and placed the napkin in the center and started apply glue all over yet delicately due to the thinness of the napkin.  I covered each tray and let dry!! Easy and fun!

Pink/Purple Flower in acrylic

I started this one with a dark blue background on 5x7 canvas. As I painted I was very happy with it and it sat on my desk for a while. I made myself finish it before I started another project and now I really love it! The colors turned out better than I expected! I also added some glossy accents for dew drops!

LOVE flower watercolor

I painted this with my watercolor pencils onto coldpress watercolor paper. Then outlined it with my black pen.  Then I added some glossy accents for dew drops!

Magnolia Seed Pod Acrylic Painting

I painted this magnolia seed pod on8x10 canvas with acrylic paints.

Japanese Magnolia Acrylic Painting

I painted this tulip bud on 5x7 canvas with acrylic paints.

Acrylic Painted Knife

This was one of David's most recent projects, he made this knife from an old horse femur bone. I decided to paint it for him on 8x10 canvas using acrylics!

Pen Cup

This was a gift I made for Mom, she is a pen lover just like me! I bought her this set of Slicci metallic pens and made this little cup to put them in! Nice!

Felt Beaded Broche

I made these for a Christmas present this past year and wanted to share them with you! I made the tree from one of my own digital stamps! Here is the tutorial for how I made it here.

Photoshoot for Lexi!

I had a great time with my friend Sonya the other day photographing her little girl, Alexis!  They turned out so CUTE!  Here are a few of my favs!  Click Here to see the whole gallery!  (172 photos!)

Grocery Coupons anyone?

Does anyone know of the best site for grocery coupons?  Please comment here for suggestions or your experiences with these sites!  That'd be really helpful!  I wanna start clipping coupons!!

Christmas Cactus!

My Christmas cactus is in full bloom and looking so pretty!  I gave it a fun little photo session the other day!

Red Velvet Cheesecake!

Crust:
17 Oreo cookies, crushed
1/4 cup butter, melted
1 tbsp sugar

Filling:
3 pkgs (8 oz) cream cheese, softened
1-1/2 cups sugar
1 cup (8 oz) sour cream
1/2 cup buttermilk
3 tbsp baking cocoa powder
2 tsp vanilla extract
4 eggs, lightly beaten
1 bottle (1 oz) red food coloring

Frosting:
1 pkg (3 oz) cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup butter, softened
2 cups confectioners' sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract

1. Place a greased 9-in springform pan on a double thickness of heavy duty foil (about 18 in square). Securely wrap foil around pan.

2. In a small bowl, combine the cookie crumbs, butter and sugar. Press onto the bottom of prepared pan. Tip: google ideas on materials to use on the bottom of your pan for easy removal of your cheesecake to place on you cake plate.

3. In a large bowl, beat cream cheese and sugar until smooth. Beat in the sour cream, buttermilk, cocoa and vanilla. Add eggs; beat on low speed just until combined. Stir in food coloring. Pour over crust. Place springform pan in a large baking pan; add 1 inch of hot water to this larger pan. Tip: This is called a 'water bath' and it prevents your cheesecake from splitting and cracking.

4. Bake at 325 for 60-70 minutes or until center is just set and top appears dull. Remove springform pan from water bath. Cool on a wire rack for 10 minutes. Carefully run a knife around the edge of the pan to loosen; cool 1 hour longer. Refrigerate overnight. Remove sides of pan.

5. For frosting, in a small bowl, beat cream cheese and butter until fluffy. Add confectioners' sugar and vanilla; beat until smooth. Frost top of cheesecake. Refrigerate until serving. Yield: 16 servings

Photoshop'd Peacock!

This peacock is one of my old favorite photos. I played with it in Photoshop for several hours playing with the colors! I had so many versions but this ended up being my favorite!  © Tiffany Richards.

Original

After

CLR

Another product that actually does what it says, and WORKS! I have tried so many bathroom cleaners that are suppose to remove the soap scum that makes your glass shower door looks so foggy and gross. Some of them work okay, but this CLR Bath & Kitchen cleaner REALLY does work! My shower doors look like NEW!! I picked it up from Walgreen's for $5.89. Amazon seems to be selling it for $33.99 (why?) Sheezz, a little pricy! But, I'm sold cause this product WORKS! 

Ha! I know this is really random kind of post, but sometimes I get excited and want to share some good news!

Glitter Polish

You know how when you see a bottle of the prettiest glittery nail polish at the store....? Then you get it home, you shake it up really good and get yourself ready for some shiny sparkly sweetness for your nails? You get a really good helping on your brush and spread it over your nail? 1 stroke, 2 strokes, 3 strokes....  and then your like 'what the...?'  Now you have on, basically, a clear polish with like 3 specks of glitter dust randomly appearing on your nail as if by accident? Like some dust from your craft table accidentally got into your clear nail polish?  LOL

Well, I finally found some glitter nail polish that really looks just as good on your nails as it does in the bottle!  Sally Hansen Gem Crush.  This shade is called Big Money (2 coats).  Perfect for New Year's Eve!!  Hooray for products that live up to their advertising promises!

The Puppy Chorus!

The girls, Emma and Francie sing along to "Emmet Otters Jugband Christmas"  Do any of you remember this movie?  My sister and I loved it!


After I uploaded that video, I was checking it out on my big screen and the girls couldn't figure out what in the world was going on!

Isabelle's Sweater

She'll let me put her sweater on as long as she doesn't have to lift one paw to help!

Color Houses!

I feel so bad about the total lack of attention to my personal blog here! Been so super busy over at Tiffany Doodles.  So, I thought I would do random posts from some of my personal photograph stash!!

I have been really into the HDR photography lately. For those of you who don't know; that means High Dynamic Range.  You need a steady tripod for your camera to capture anywhere from 3 to 5 photos at different exposures, averaging about 2 stops between increments.  Which means you take a really dark photo, a normal exposure and then one over-exposed.  The purpose of this is to capture all of the information in the highlights, midtones, and shadows.  Then you import all of these exposures into your photo editing software and through the magic of Photoshop and some plugins for your tone mapping you get something that looks like this!!  Maybe one day I'll do a tutorial if you really want me too!!
Enjoy!  More to come soon!  Thanks for looking!  Click to enlarge.