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.

Ally cat in window!

Sometimes ally likes to get crafty with me!

Tiffany Doodles Blog Hop - Birdie Card

Welcome to Day 3 of our Tiffany Doodles Blog Hop! We hope you had a great time on the previous 2 days, and perhaps found some inspiration along the way!

In case you missed yesterday, click here to catch up from Day 1 and Day 2!  Be sure to participate everyday by commenting on each post & following every blog to be eligible for all prizes.

Today is the last day of the hop! We hope you have enjoyed the tour!!  In order to qualify for all prizes you must:

1. participate everyday
2. comment on every participants post
3. follow every participants blog
4. Special Note: Make sure that your Blog and Email are listed in your Blogger profile for notification purposes.  If your email is not visible on your profile make sure it is easy to find on your blog.  Thanks! 

While your hopping keep in mind the SALE we are having this weekend at the store!! All Bird and Flower Digital stamps are on sale for 25% off!  No coupon necessary, discount will be taken at the register.  Your welcome!  =)  PS. Even more sales listed below!

By participating daily in our Blog Hop you will be eligible for prizes!  Lots of prizes! Total Prizes valued at OVER $220!!  All winners will be chosen randomly.  Everyday we will chose 3 winners.  Chosen from the main TD blog.  Your participation on the other blogs will be verified prior to announcement.  If you have won you will be notified by email, so make sure you email is easy to find either in your comment, your blogger profile, or on your blog.  All winners will be announced on the blog after the hop is over.  Prizes will be awarded as follows:

Day 1	Day 2	Day 3
3 winners *	3 winners *	3 winners *
* $10 Shopping Spree * 50 Doodle Soup Reward Points * Fall Leaves (png) Elements Pack for each winner

Even if you don't win on 1 of the 3 days - you still have a chance to win the Grand Prize!!  The Grand Prize will be chosen randomly from the main TD blog from all participants from everyday.

	Grand Prize
	1 winner *
* Level 5 Membership * $25 Shopping Spree * Fall Leaves (png) Elements Pack

 

There are 2 ways to earn extra entries!!

1) You can earn extra entries for today's prize if you make a card
with any Bird images by Tiffany Doodles

If you would like too, link your card through inlinkz on the main blog post.

Enter as many times as you wish! One entry per card submitted.

2) If your not up for making a card, you can write your own post

about our Blog Hop & Tiffany Doodles Digi stamps!

If you post about us you can earn 5 extra entries!!

Also submit your post to the inlinkz below!

On today's Hop we are featuring cards made with Bird images by Tiffany Doodles!

For my blog hop card I choose to use the Birdie Wings digi stamp.  This is such a cute bird to color and also a fun one to paper piece.  I did a little bit of stitching on this shabby chic patchwork card.

All papers in this card are from Basic Gray's June Bug series.  I started by cutting my main red polka dot piece in 4.25" circle.

Then I punched 14 circles with my 1" circle punch!

Then I cut 3 circles of the same size to make my patches in the middle to be sewed on.

Then I die cut my yellow center piece.

I placed my 1" circles face down and used a plain piece of cardstock cut in a 4.25" circle as a base to glue my small circles onto.  I layed it out like the pic below as perfectly as possible.

Then I held down the big circle and drew a circle around it completely on top of the little circles like below. 

I drew this circle so that I would make sure I glued each one down evenly and in the correct alignment!

Then it would look perfect like below!

Next, I glued my red piece down in the center.  I also cut my 3 patchwork circles into quarters and choose 4 pieces to use that looked decent together.  I layed them out on the card to see how they would look!

Next, i colored my birdie with copics. Zoom pic to see colors used.  I cut the birdie out with my scissors and then outlined any white edges with my black sharpie pen!

Here it is close up!

I also colored a little bluebird...

I also colored an orange poppy!

And a red poppy!

Then I did my machine stitching on the card (which I am NOT good at!!) LOL  After I did that I decided to hand stitch the little yellow piece so that it would look decent.

I love hand stitching on my cards!

Then I printed my sentiment from the computer, die cut it, & colored my paper the same color as the birdie.  I assembled my card together and tried out the various little digis I colored!

I hope you like this 'tweet' little card and feel inspired to make one of your own!

 

September Sales

Besides the Blog Hop sale we have going on,
we are also having 2 other sales in the store!

 Design Team Member Call

We currently need someone who can make TD digis into Cut files!
Video Tutor Details Here.    Position has been filled. Thanks.
Cut File Maker Details Here.

Banner Spots Available

Tiffany Doodles blog gets an average of 5,000 to 7,000 visitors per month!

Would you like to get in on that action?  Now accepting banner spots for the blog!

Click here for pricing info!

Here are you blog hop links for Day 3....

1. Tiffany Doodles (start)
2. Donna Mikasa
3. Deirdre Horgan
4. Anette Hjerpaasen
5. Collette Landwer
6. Sally Sherfield
7. Jessica Griffin 
8. Tiffany Richards

Thank you so much for joining us on this inspiring blog hop!  It's all been for you ... the loyal fans!  Please remember Tiffany Doodles when making all of your holiday cards!  Your patronage is very much appreciated!!  Good luck on winning the Grand Prize!  All winners will be announced tomorrow (Mon)!!