How to Make an Orange Octopus

April 1, 2017 | Allison

I was playing with my food the other day (heh heh), and ended up with a cute little octopus that doubled as an orange sunflower on the other side. 🙂 I decided to post a simple tutorial so you can enjoy them both too! 😀

You Will Need…

an orange or clementine
a sharp knife (I used a serrated one)
a black Sharpie

Step One:

Starting at the top, divide the orange peel into eight sections running halfway down the side. (If you’re not too sure of your cutting skills, you may want to draw guidlines with a Sharpie. 😉 )

Step Two:

When you start cutting, try not to cut much past the peel into the orange or everything will get juicy. After the tentacles/petals are cut, peel them carefully away from the orange. Looking good!

Step Three:

Finally, draw suitably adorable eyes and a tiny smile, and display your octopus or sunny bloom with pride…. Or you could always eat it. XD

What do you think? Aren’t they cute? Which is your favorite?

Thanks for reading, my lovely friends!

***Allison***

A Happy Pup, Some Fluffy Bunnies, and a Bunch of Rather Puzzled Cows

March 28, 2017 | Allison

HA HA HA! How’s that for a title, hmm? Oh dear, it makes me smile. XD

Anyway, as you can tell, I’m going to post some animal pictures today. I shall start with the happy pup, namely our lab, Maggie. 🙂 She’s always so happy and energetic – and cute!

Maggie b&w.jpg — And a B&W version, just for fun. 😉

Now for some fuzzier subjects. Or in Willow’s case FLUFFIER subjects. AHH SHE’S MY FAVORITE FLUFFBALL I JUST WANT TO SQUISH HER! 😀

DSC_1219 (1280x853) — AWW SHE’S SO ADORABLE! 😀

Okay guys, now this next photo makes me laugh so hard. XD XD XD Is it not HILARIOUS?! She was stretching and yawning (did you know bunnies do that like cats?), and I quick snapped a picture. HA HA HA! She looks like a mixture between ferocious and super happy. XD Which do you think?

DSC_1216 (1280x853) — OH DOSE WITTLE TEETH!

Olaf and Diamond are best friends, I think. 🙂

Oh my goodness, Snickers is also SO adorable and photogenic! Don’t you think?

DSC_1252 (1280x853) — HIS CHUBBY CHEEKS!

Clemmie, of course, had to run away and hide to make me use flash. 😡 XD Hee hee!

Oh my, this picture of Lily makes her look HUGE! ~~That’s because she is.~~

And lastly but not leastly, we have a bunch of rather puzzled cows. XD I remembered I hadn’t really taken many pictures of cows even though we live on a dairy farm (but Dad rents the dairy to someone else so we don’t actually have much to do with the cows). So I took some pictures. 😉

The ear tags tell you who the cow’s father and grandfather (or sire and grandsire) was. Sometimes the names are pretty funny! “Twist” isn’t too bad, though. 😉

It’s so funny how they have topknots. XD

The cows are actually pretty shy, but very curious.

“Hey, look at this! There’s a girl human over here with a strange black clicking thing. What do you s’pose it is?”

“I dunno. Give it a sniff test, will you? It could be dangerous.”

“D-dangerous? Weeell, alright. *Sniff, sniff*”

“And?”

“Blech, it smells like human to me. AHH! IT CLICKED AT ME! IT’S GOING TO HURT ME ANY TIME NOW! RUN AWAAAAAYYY!”

*Shuffle, shuffle* *Nudge, nudge* “Hey, is it safe now?”

“I dunno. You go check.”

“No you go!”

“Uh… she looks pretty friendly to me. A few straws short of a haybale, maybe, but pretty friendly. As for that clicking thing, though…”

“What clicking thing? I want to see the clicking thing! MAKE WAY, MAKE WAY.”

“COMING THROUGH.” *Push*

“EXCUSE ME.” *Shove*

“Okay, let me in, guys. I’ll figure out what it is…”

“Hmm. Hmmmmmm. It looks like a… you know, that thing that clicks, it’s called…”

DSC_1195 (1280x853) — OH MY WORD ISN’T THIS PICTURE HILARIOUS?! XD XD XD

“*Sniff, sniff* AHA! It says NI-KON. What’s a NI-KON? Do you know, girls? AHH IT CLICKED AGAIN!”

“Wait. Wait, look!”

“Guys, she’s holding something. IT’S GREEN! Green is yummy. Mmm, I want some.”

“But what if it’s dangerous? Maybe it clicks too?”

“Well I, for one, am going to try some. You just watch me.”

“OH MY GOODNESS GUYS IT’S DELICIOUS! MORE, MORE! GIRL HUMAN, CAN I PLEASE HAVE SOME MORE?”

“Oh great. I knew it. It probably has some terrible powder in it to make you hungry for more or something. Sheesh. Humans.”

_________________________________________________________

Hee hee! That was a fun post to write. 🙂 I hope it was fun to read too! Did you like the cow story thing? XD Which was your favorite photo from this post?

***Allison***

WordCrafters 2 Finale!

March 26, 2017 | Allison

YAYAYAYAY! I’m so excited to show you guys the last chapter of WordCrafters 2! To all who participated, thank you soooo much! I loved reading all of your chapters, and you did such a great job! If you need to read through the story again first, click here.

Are you ready to see how it ends? It DID get rather long, so settle in. XD

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“Esme!” shouted Pippin, Vivi, and Katri in relief. Esme looked quite relieved to see them too, but not for long. Suddenly she started talking faster than her friends had ever heard her talk.

“Guys, we have to find Devin! I was looking for unicorns but then the ground opened up and I fell into this weird underground place and this really mean guy grabbed me and hurt me but then Devin came and saved me but all the sudden a super scary dragon or something appeared and the mean guy was going to catch us both but Devin fought him and saved my life AGAIN but now I don’t know where he is and Daisy said he’s in danger and… and…” Esme stopped for breath, then broke into tears. “Now we have to save him.” She raised her teary eyes to look at Vivi. Vivi dropped her head and kicked at the ground, muttering something under her breath. Pippin looked a little stunned that Esme had just talked faster than he ever had, and Katri… Katri had her face in her hands.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered.

“For what?” Vivi said, a little ferociously.

Katri breathed a trembling sigh. “Well… that ‘mean guy’ was…” her voice dropped even lower. “My father.”

Everyone’s head shot up.

You could practically see the steam hissing out of Vivi’s ears. She gritted her teeth so hard you could hear it and shot imaginary flaming daggers at Katri.

“Listen,” she hissed. “I know Devin isn’t my favorite person in the world, but did your dad really have to do all that to him? And what about my friend Esme? Huh? Oh, and what about you? Are you hatching a secret plan to kidnap all of us?” She bit off each word sharply, as if snapping a cracker in two.

Katri backed away. “No, no! I promise I’m on your side! I mean I was supposed to be against you guys at the beginning, but once I really met you, I knew I never could be.”

Pippin spoke up. “Hey, but how do we know you’re telling the truth? I vote we use some Honesty Powder on her.”

Katri dropped her head again. “It’s not real. It doesn’t work.”

Now it was Pippin’s turn to explode. “WHAT DO YOU MEAN IT DOESN’T WORK? And how do we know that you’re not lying to us AGAIN?”

By now tears were rolling down Katri’s face. “Please,” she whispered. “Please, you can trust me now. I… I want to be your friend, not your enemy.”

“STOP!” Esme wailed. “Can’t you see how much you’re hurting her? Can’t you see she’s telling the truth?” She looked disapprovingly at her friends. “And you know arguing isn’t going to save Devin, no matter how mad we are.”

For a moment everyone was silent, ashamed and taken aback by Esme’s unaccustomed air of authority.

Pippin and Vivi both sighed at once. “Sorry, Katri,” they mumbled.

Katri gave them a little smile and wiped her eyes. “It’s alright.”

Esme let out a long breath. “Okay, is everyone good now? Because I really want to go find Devin.”

************

They were quite a procession walking down the path: two girls (one astride a fuzzy gray unicorn), one boy, a fairy and an elf (who were keeping their distance), and a tiny baby dragon who had started it all.

Katri led the way, flying quickly until they reached her father’s “office” a.k.a dungeon where Devin was held. They all stayed outside while Katri slipped in stealthily to find Devin’s cell. Finally she appeared at the entrance. “Number 38” she said quietly.

Daisy, Faun, and the baby dragon stayed outside, but the rest of the friends all tiptoed down the long, dark hallway where the voices and moans of prisoners echoed off the wall. Esme moved closer to Vivi. Finally they reached cell number 38. There was Devin, sitting dejectedly on the hard stone cot at the back of the cell.

Pippin’s face lighted up when he saw his brother. “Psst, Devin!” he hissed. “Over here!” Devin looked up quickly, clapping a hand over his mouth to stifle a yell.

“I knew you would find me!” he beamed. He and Pippin grinned at each other for a moment until Devin’s smile faded. “Um, excuse me for asking, but what do we do now? How are you going to get me out?

Katri clenched her fists. “Leave it to me.”

****************

Thirty long, slimy minutes later, the whole troop emerged from a trapdoor in the ground, covered from knee to toe in gooey greenish mud. Daisy sniffed them disapprovingly, and the dragon and elf on his back turned away in disgust.

Esme gasped and fell onto the grass. “I hope… I never… have to do that… again,” she said between gags. She looked ruefully at her lovely black hair which was currently striped with a startling shade of mossy green. “Why doesn’t your father clean up those passages every once in a while?”

Katri shrugged. “He only ever uses them in case of emergencies, which we haven’t had since… well, since a long time.”

Vivi scowled. “Well you’d better be grateful Devin, after all that.”

“Oh, I am!” he beamed Vivi a sincere smile, which quickly melted her scowl.

Suddenly they heard footsteps rounding the side of the cave. There was no time to do anything but stand still, looking scared.

It was Katri’s father.

“RUN!” Katri screamed. “FOLLOW ME!”

For a moment, Katri’s father was too stunned too move. His daughter was helping those children? She should be hurting them. His shock gave them just enough time to disappear into the woods, only stopping to rest when they finally reached the main path.

“Now that was close,” Pippin panted. “Too close. Let’s just get this dragon back to its home without any more mishaps, okay?”

And they did – mostly. Most of the tenser moments were caused by words rather than actions, like the time when Pippin referred to Daisy as a “she.”

“FOR THE LAST TIME, I AM NOT A ‘SHE’!” Daisy exploded. “MY NAME IS DAISY AND I AM A VERY IMPORTANT, VERY RARE MALE UNICORN THAT CAN SURVIVE ONLY IN DAISY FIELDS, OKAY? OKAY! WHY DOES EVERYONE HAVE TO TEASE ME ABOUT MY NAME?!”

Pippin grimaced. “Sheesh, okay. You don’t have to take it so personally, Mr. Daisy.” He grinned at the unicorn’s indignant huffle.

Or the time Katri and Faun got in an argument about whether fairies or elves were the best. (“At least I don’t have an evil father,” Faun said triumphantly.)

Or that time when they thought they lost the baby dragon (again), but found him curled up in Pippin’s pocket. (“Oops. Heh heh. Honest, I just forgot he was in there!”)

But the worst of their adventures happened when they finally reached their journey’s end. Esme stared at the wicked-looking mountain looming over them. “Th-the baby dragon lives here?”

Katri nodded grimly. “That is the happy home of Snow White. The worst, most bitter person I know besides my dad.”

“Hold on,” Esme squealed. “Did you just say SNOW WHITE?”

Katri nodded again.

“But why is she such a bad person now? I thought she was good!”

Katri sighed. “It’s a very long story. But pretty much she was jealous of my sister Ariel”

“Wait, as in Ariel the MERMAID?” Esme broke in.

“Yes,” Katri said shortly. “So anyway, she was jealous of my sister so she basically banished her from this world and now no one knows where she is, and that’s why my father’s the way he is.” Katri hung her head. “That’s why I am the way I am. We miss her, so terribly. It’s horrifying to think that she could be anywhere – even in the human world! That’s why we staged the dragon egg thing in the first place. We need people like you to find Ariel for us – we could never pass unnoticed among humans. I was supposed to assign you this journey as at test, to see if you were up to the task. But it was a test for me too, and I failed. Miserably.”

Everyone was silent for a moment, digesting this large chunk of information. Then Vivi spoke up.

“But… if you’re on our side, why did you make us take the dragon all the way here instead of taking him yourself and letting us go home?”

“Because my father programmed the compass not to take you home until you completed your mission… at which time he and I would show up at Snow White’s mountain and blackmail you into agreeing with our plan before you went home to search for Ariel.”

“Oh.” Devin said in a small voice, the magnitude of this adventure finally coming home to him.

Esme looked around nervously. “So why isn’t your father here now?”

“Because he wasn’t prepared to leave his duties this soon and come here. Not to mention the fact that Daisy was a very helpful transportation device.” Daisy whinnied proudly. “But you’re right, he’ll probably be here awfully soon. You’d better leave while you can.”

As if Katri had conjured him up on the spot, a dark speck appeared in the sky. Katri’s father on his terrifying flying beast.

And he was flying fast.

“OH NOOOO!” Esme wailed.

Katri jumped into action. “Here, quick! Where’s your compass? Who has it?” Everyone looked at each other with terrified blank stares.

Then, “I have it,” Faun jumped up, holding the precious compass in her tiny hands.

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief. “Here, let me have it,” Vivi demanded. She grabbed the compass and slammed it hard onto the mountainside.

It didn’t break.

“NOOOOO!”

“My father’s trying to deactivate it!”

The black dot was a dot no longer. It was a terrifying, fire-breathing arrow shooting straight for them.

“Here, let me try,” Devin said frantically. He scooped up the compass and heaved it downward with a mighty effort.

It shattered.

Everything went blindingly bright, but before she totally disappeared, Katri shoved something into Esme’s hand.

“For when you come back,” she shouted above the whirling, swirling noisy light surrounding them.

“WE’RE COMING BACK?” Esme screeched, but it was too late. She could see nothing now, feel nothing except the hard object in one hand and the strong grip of Vivi on her other.

And then they were home. The birds were singing, the sun was shining, and everything was exactly like it had been the minute the dragon had hatched. But everything, everything had changed.

The four friends looked at each other, blinking and shaking their heads. They gathered around the object in Esme’s hand.

It was a small, leather journal stamped with strange characters on the front. Slowly Esme opened it. Katri’s Diary. STAY OUT! Proclaimed the first page in bold letters. Then, Esme knew. Katri had given them her precious journal because she had not had time to answer all their questions. And she knew something else, too.

They were going back someday.

________________________________________

There, done! So how did you like it? Did you see what I did there at the end? I don’t know if you remember or not, but Snow White was the one who captured Alalia and Jacob in WordCrafters 1, because she was jealous of a certain Ariel and needed their help. Hmmm… Hee hee! If that doesn’t make sense, don’t worry. It should make sense later when… well, you’ll see. 😉

Well this has been quite a long post already so I won’t go into many details about WordCrafters 3, but suffice it to say that there WILL be a WordCrafters 3, hopefully around June, and Josie and I have some very exciting plans for it!

Thanks once again for helping us create this wonderful, fun story, guys. Give yourselves a round of applause. 😀

***Allison***

Twilight Photoshoot

March 22, 2017March 22, 2017 | Allison

Hello, my friends and readers! How are you all today? Good, I hope!

Since I just posted some wintry photos, I wanted to post some springy photos today. 🙂 March is so flighty…

I actually got a several photos in the afternoon, not just at twilight… but hey, I had to name this post something! XD

I love how emerald green the triticale fields look in the sun! ♥ It makes me happy. 😀

DSC_0502 (1280x853) — This is an alfalfa field… just in case you were wondering. 😉

Maggie explored happily beside me while I took pictures. 😀

edit 7 (1280x853) — Hee hee, Maggie looks so noble. XD

And NOW we get to the twilight pictures. 😉

DSC_0601 (853x1280) — Ahh…♥ Probably my favorite picture in this post!

Megan and I did a little mini Sister’s Photoshoot, but I didn’t get very many good pictures because it was a bit too dark. 😦

Megan and I also had fun taking forced perspective photos of the moon. 😀

See you later, my friends! I hope you enjoyed this post!

***Allison***

P. S. Eeee! Guess what my next post (hopefully) will be about? The last chapter of WordCrafters 2! YAAAAAY! I’m so excited to show it to you guys!

Of Snow, Ice, Snowmen, Puddles… Etc.

March 19, 2017March 19, 2017 | Allison

Guys, buckle up for a TON of pictures! This may be one of my longest posts to date. XD

It snowed last Monday/Tuesday, and I just went photo-wild. XD I got a few neat pictures of the snow, but most of the pictures were actually of icicles or ice. So anyway, have a seat and take a peek, won’t you?

Phew, I don’t know where to start! Let’s see. I guess I’ll start with some pretty, icy pictures.

Ice:

tag (8) (1280x853) — The poor pussy willow buds got rather frozen. 😦

Next up…

Snow:

tag (25) (1280x853) — It didn’t snow very much, but it still looked pretty!

tag (24) (1280x853) — Heh heh, I drew this horribly deformed smiley face in the snow with water.

My three youngest siblings made this hilarious but cute snowman. XD After I took these pictures, they made him a “Snow Cool” sign.

tag (28) (1280x853) — They used icicles for the mohawk, a carrot for the nose (obviously), sunglasses for the… uh, sunglasses ( XD ) and a smear of dirt for the mouth.

After most of that snow had melted, what do you know? It snowed AGAIN! (And then melted super quickly but oh well.) The most amazing thing about this snow was the snowflakes. I mean, they weren’t even snowflakes, they were more like snowballs! They were the biggest flakes I have ever seen – a whole bunch of snowflakes bunched into a clump, some of which were quarter-sized or bigger. I tried frantically to get a good picture that showed how big they were, but I didn’t really get any. 😦 I did get some pretty pictures, though!

tag (3) — We have a nice view of this silo from our deck. 😀

tag (4) — There you can kind of see how hard it was snowing!

Ooh, yay! Now I get to show you the…

Icicles

After we finished gathering eggs, I ran back to the house to get my camera. I noticed the lovely icicles hanging from the chicken house roofs, and I just HAD to get some pictures. 😉 I’m so glad I did! It took quite a bit of patience and a high shutter speed setting to capture the drops falling, but I had SO much fun experimenting!

tag (13) (1280x853) — Woohoo, two at once!

These icicles are on our house, and I took this picture at sunset.

And that leads us to…

Water Drops

After I had taken quite a few icicle photos, I noticed that the drops sliding off of them were splashing into a puddle. I decided it would be fun to take pictures of that too! Instead of kneeling down in the wet snow, though, I got a (rather dirty) measuring pitcher from the chicken house, brought out something to sit on, and started taking pictures. This also took quite a bit of patience, like the icicles. I got a whole bunch of blurry or boring pictures for every good one. But again, it was so exciting when I DID get a good one! Hee hee!

(Note: I edited these pictures a good bit – they didn’t look like this straight from the camera. 😉 )

And now for my very favorite one. ♥ Ohhh my goodness I love it so much!

And last but not least, we have…

Everything Else

I took several not-so-snowy pictures that I wanted to include too.

Quite a few robins were hopping around this puddle, waiting for spring to come, I guess. 🙂

robin 1 — I love how you can see his reflection.

robin 2 — This was a fun one! I made everything black and white except for the robin’s pop of color.

I was pretty tickled to get this next picture. I saw two robins fighting in the puddle all of a sudden and quick pressed the button – and it actually worked! I love it when that happens. 🙂

tag (33) (1280x853) — This is neat, don’t you think?

tag (29) (1280x853) — I rather like this one too.

I shall end with this promise of spring. This poor little beauty was stuck face down in the snow when I rescued her, but she’s still so bright and cheery for all that! Daffodils are such incredibly hardy, resilient flowers that can spring back after even such cold trials as this snow. Sometimes it’s hard to be a daffodil, isn’t it? It is for me…

Aaaaannnd I’m finished! Maybe it wasn’t so wise to put all those pictures in one post, but I just wanted to try and see how it worked. XD What do you think? Was that way too much or did you heartily enjoy seeing all those photos at once? Or are you indifferent? XD

If you actually got through the whole thing, which category or picture was your favorite?

Thanks for reading (and persevering)!

***Allison***

The Art Lab, Episode 23: How to Draw a Realistic Eye

March 17, 2017November 12, 2018 | Allison

I am so excited to show you guys this episode of Art Lab! As you may know, I absolutely love drawing and photographing eyes, so I thought this would be a fun post to do. 🙂

Art Inspiration:

The inspiration for today is this amazing tutorial (also shown below). The end result seriously looks like a photo, doesn’t it?

AHHHH, I love it! Mine looks more like a drawing and less like a photo, but I’m still quite pleased with how it turned out. 😀

It was sooo much fun to draw! Today I’m going to show you a few tips and tricks I’ve learned from this and other tutorials and help you avoid some common mistakes. Now I am NOT saying I don’t make mistakes, because I do, and plenty of ’em! When you make a mistake you can’t fix, sometimes you just have to figure out what went wrong and start over. I know you’ve heard this about 2 billion times in your life, but seriously: if you want to get good at something, art included, just keep practicing! Sometimes you have to fail once or several times before you succeed.

Mistake #1: Eyelashes

Eyelashes can be incredibly hard to draw, am I right? They give me a lot of trouble sometimes. But here are some things to keep in mind that might help.

Most people’s eyelashes are not perfectly straight and thick like American Girl Doll eyelashes. It’s a sad fact of life, my friends. (Actually, maybe not so sad – that would be kind of creepy. XD ) Look in the mirror: eyelashes cross over each other and are often bunched together in little clusters.
Lashes aren’t as thick and dark at the top as at the bottom. Press your pencil down hard when you start at the base of the eyelash and not as much as you curve the line upwards.
Peoples’ bottom set of eyelashes can actually be pretty long (or not, depending on the person). Draw them lighter and more sparsely than the top set. And again, they aren’t perfectly straight and thick. I think eyelashes in the bottom set cross over each other especially much. (Look at the “Art Inspiration” at the beginning of this post for an example.)

Mistake #2: The White of the Eye

Often people leave the white of the eye just that – blank white. But the truth is, your eyelid and eyelashes cast shadows on it, so it’s not perfectly white. Shade and smudge around the inner edges of your eye to make it really pop.

Now that you know what to avoid, I wanted to do a little tutorial for you guys. I already showed you the super amazing, super realistic tutorial for the art inspiration, but it was a bit hard to follow, wasn’t it? This tutorial should be easier to follow, even if it’s not as amazing. 😉

Step 1: Draw the shape of the eye. It’s a rounded almond shape, wider or thinner depending on the person. Don’t forget to add a rounded triangle thingy for the tear duct.

Step 2: Draw the iris, pupil, and highlight. (I just did a simple circle highlight for this tutorial.) Don’t draw the iris as a complete circle because you can’t see the whole iris in real life unless you’re opening your eye really wide. Sketch out the pupil until you find a satisfactory size – a too-small pupil can end up looking kind of weird.

Now add a curved line for the eyelid on top and another curved line at the bottom.

Step 3: Every person’s iris is different, but for this tutorial I went with sort of a starburst pattern. It’s okay if it isn’t perfect because it’s not always perfect in real life! Add a bunch of irregular dark lines coming out from the pupil.

Step 4: Color in the pupil the darkest you can and try to pull out the dark pigment into those lines surrounding it.

Step 5: Ooh, this is an exciting step! Finish the iris by adding more dark, inward pointing lines around the outside of the iris. Shade the top of the iris darker – remember those shadows! I smudged the pencil a bit in the middle of the iris where the starburst was to blend everything together.

Step 6: Woohoo, looking good! See what a difference those shadows make? Shade the top of the eye, the corners of the eye, and the tear duct. Smudge the pencil with your fingers to smooth out the shading.

Step 7: Add the eyelashes, and ta-daa! For extra credit and realism, you can shade the skin around the eye too, which I didn’t show here. (Note: Oops, the eyelashes didn’t turn out as well as I had hoped. I think I should have made them darker, longer, but not as close together. Remember what I was saying about making mistakes? Heh heh. XD Oh well, better luck next time!)

And there you have it! I hope this post was helpful to all you wonderful artists out there. 🙂 Do you have any tips for drawing eyes to share with me and the other readers?

Happy drawing! 😀

***Allison***

P. S. If you want to see another fun tutorial for drawing eyes, be sure to check out Anika’s post here! Her tutorial is super easy to follow (unlike mine maybe, heh heh) and shows you how to draw pretty, colorful eyes with pen and watercolors. I especially love all the expressions she did with the eyes at the end. XD 😀

Snow Day Doughnuts {+Recipe}

March 15, 2017May 28, 2021 | Allison

Yesterday it snowed (though a rather disappointing amount), and Mom decided to make snow day doughnuts with us! She and her sisters used to make them on snow days with their mom when they were girls.

It was a lot of fun to do, and it wasn’t actually that hard – just time consuming. Make sure you plan ahead before making doughnuts because it takes most of the day to let the dough rise the two or three times required.

After mixing up the dough, Mom rolled it out fairly thick.

Since we, ahem, didn’t actually have a doughnut cutter (which my mom noticed a little too late XD ) we used a round measuring cup for cutting out the doughnut and a bottle cap for cutting out the hole. It actually worked quite well!

We put the cut out doughnuts on an extra table board which was big enough to hold them all but still portable.

DSC_0986 (1280x853) — Don’t worry, we made more than this. 😉

We didn’t forget the doughnut holes!

Next we needed to fry them – the fun part! Make sure to slip the doughnuts into the hot oil very, very carefully to avoid getting splattered: don’t plop them in! Watch the middles of the doughnuts and flip them over every so often to see if they’re getting browned. You have to be quick because once they’re done, they’re all done at once.

This is what an unglazed doughnut looks like. Pretty tempting, huh?

But take a look at these! YUMMY! Let the doughnuts cool and drain on some paper towels for just a bit, then take a knife and fork and coat them in a delicious glaze.

DSC_1004 (1280x853) — Yikes, this isn’t the best picture ever, but oh well. 😛

Never forget the poor yummy doughnut holes!

Let them dry on a metal rack, like we did, or hang them from a wooden dowel, and then DIG IN! Ohhh they taste so good! This recipe made about 50 doughnuts for us, so we froze the extras in Ziploc bags to have for Sunday morning breakfasts. Mmmmm!

Okay, are you ready for the recipe now? The doughnut recipe was handed down from my Grandma and the glaze recipe is from Mennonite Country-Style Recipes & Kitchen Secrets (but we always call it Esther Shank’s). Mom and Dad grew up Mennonite, so we use this cookbook a lot! It has a lot of great, classic recipes as well as some more unusual ones, and it also has plenty of tips and tricks for cooking your best. If you’d like to see the Amazon listing, click here.

(*Sigh* Since I’m not a food blogger, I therefore don’t have the fancy “Print this Recipe” button. 😦 XD )

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Doughnut Recipe:

1 c. Crisco, butter or other shortening
4 c. milk
1 c. sugar
4 packages of dry yeast (4 tablespoons)
4 eggs
4 tsp. salt
14 c. flour (add to desired consistency)

Heat milk. Dissolve yeast in warm water and mix into warmed milk. Add 3 cups of flour to mixture and beat until smooth. Set back and let rise about 2 hours.

Cream butter, sugar, and salt, then add eggs. Add to yeast mixture. Stir in the rest of the flour and let rise until dough doubles in size.

Roll out the dough, cut, and let rise again. Fry in fat or oil at 375 degrees. Glaze (see below).

Glaze Recipe:

1 lb. powdered sugar (3 1/2 cups)
6-8 tbsp. boiling water
1 tsp. vanilla

Mix until smooth. Pour into small, deep bowl and dip the fried doughnuts with a fork and knife. They should be well covered with a thin coat of glaze.

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And there you have it! The perfect snack to go with your snow day. (Or any day, actually.)

Do you like doughnuts? (Hint: the answer is yes.) Have you ever made doughnuts before?

I hope you enjoyed this post, and thanks for reading!

***Allison***

P. S. True, it was a disappointing amount of snow, but I actually got quite a few fun snow/ice pictures, if I do say so myself. 😀 Stay tuned!

A Walk at “The Sycamores”

March 11, 2017March 12, 2017 | Allison

(Update: Woops! Apparently I accidentally published this post before it was finished, but I’ve fixed it now. Heh heh. XD )

Oh my goodness, I took TONS of pictures the other day! Like, more than 100. XD Since I don’t think it would be the best idea to post all the pictures at once, I guess I’ll break them up into a few posts to save your poor scrolling fingers. XD

Oh, and hi, by the way. 😀

Annyway, we have this spot on our farm we call “The Sycamores,” because… well, it’s a row of sycamores. The trees are so big and old and beautiful! I love the white bark.

DSC_0463 (1280x853) — This seed pod or seed ball or whatever you call it is kind of deformed…

DSC_0469 (1280x853) — But this one’s better. 🙂

DSC_0473 (1280x853) — I love how the seed balls look like ornaments hanging from the branches!

One tree is especially big and white at the top. ♥

DSC_0476 (1280x853) — Not all the bark is white, though, especially at the bottom. It’s only white where the bark like this flakes off.

Several cedar trees grow among the sycamores, and while they aren’t as pretty, they’re still neat up close.

Yikes, we found a scary looking thorn bush. O.o

Isn’t it amazing that this feather was stuck in the crack like that? Ha ha, okay, I’m kidding – I put it there so I could take the picture better. XD

Here’s one last tree, but I don’t know what kind this is. And it’s dead. But it still looked really neat against the blue sky, don’t you think?! Ahh, I want to go back and take some more pictures soon!

Alrighty, I guess that’s probably enough pictures for one post. 🙂 Tell me, which picture(s) was(were) your favorite(s)? (Wow, that was complicated. XD ) Stay tuned for the rest of the 100 pictures! 😀

***Allison***

How to Edit Photos, Part 3: Editing Portraits

March 7, 2017March 8, 2017 | Allison

Hello, folks! 😀

I’m back with another edition of the photo editing series I’m doing! 😀 (Click here to see part one, and here to see part two.) Today I want to go over how to use PicMonkey to touch up a portrait of a person, as well as some clever tricks to use the touch-up tools in unexpected ways. I’ll also talk about how to use PicMonkey to create the perfect book character portrait for those of my blogging friends who love writing. 😉 I hope you find this helpful!

To begin with, let’s go over some common problems and how to fix them with the tools in PicMonkey’s “Touch Up” tab.

Blemishes: Well obviously you can use the “Blemish Fix” tool, but you can also use the “Clone” tool if that doesn’t work (because sometimes it doesn’t). If Blemish Fix doesn’t work and you don’t have Royale, you can fix small blemishes with the “Draw” tool from the Effects tab. Set the hardness to zero and use the dropper to select the skin color surrounding the blemish. Then paint over the blemish, like you’re using concealer.
Erasing Flyaways and Frizzy Hair: I learned this tip from the PicMonkey blog! Use the “Wrinkle Remover” tool to erase that annoying halo of frizz around your subject’s head. Wrinkle Remover softens whatever it’s painted on to, so it basically blurs the stray hairs (and wrinkle lines) into their surroundings. On a related note, you can shape eyebrows with wrinkle remover too – just don’t overdo it! XD
Brightening Eyes and Other Shiny Things: The “Eye Brighten” tool is one of my favorites in the touch up tab because it’s so versatile. Use it to, duh, brighten peoples’ eyes, but also to brighten the eyes of animals and pets. Cat’s eyes, especially benefit from a little brightening to make them pop. Eye Brighten is good for other shiny things too, like jewelry, cameras, and watches, that are shiny in real life but are dull in the picture. Oh, and one more thing! Paint Eye Brighten onto the eyelashes, eyebrows, and any other parts of the face you want to sharpen and darken.
“Ironing” Wrinkly Clothing: You can actually smooth out wrinkles in clothing with Wrinkle Remover too! Imagine that. 🙂
Whiten Eyeballs: You can brighten the whites of your subjects eyes with Teeth Whiten! You can also use Clone to erase blood vessels or other blemishes.

Now that you know a few tricks, let me show you some examples.

I have to say, I did use the Exposure tab first (mainly Highlights), since this photo was so dark to begin with. But after that, I used a little bit of blemish remover/clone; some eye brighten (for eyes, camera, and watch); wrinkle remover to tame Megan’s flyaways, blur the background, unwrinkle her shirt, and smooth her eyebrows;and I think some airbrush too. Looking good!

before and after.jpg — photo credit via abarefootgal.wordpress.com

Here I used wrinkle remover again to erase my flyaways and a few wrinkles in my shirt; and then eye brighten on my eyes, eyebrows, and Lily’s eye. 🙂

This is my Dad’s eye. 🙂 I chose not to erase the wrinkles completely, but I did smooth them just a tad. I also used Teeth Whiten and Clone to whiten the whites of his eyes, Mascara ( XD ) to darken his eyelashes, and Eye Brighten to brighten his eyes and darken his eyelashes as well.

Here’s an example of using “Touch Up” to edit photos of your pets. This little kitten was so cute, but it’s face was kind of dirty. The only things I used here were Blemish Fix and Eye Brighten.

Now for the other part of the post…

How to Create the Perfect Book Character Portrait With PicMonkey

What happens when you know exactly what your character should look like, but you can’t find any pictures on Pinterest to match? That’s a terrible problem. 😛 But never fear – here’s how to fix it. Start with the best photo inspiration you have of your character, the photo that’s the closest thing to the picture in your mind. Try to find a picture where the structure of the face and hair is right, even if the colors are wrong. Then change the color of the character’s eyes, hair, lips, skin, etc. on PicMonkey!

Here’s an example I did. I’ve been trying to find the perfect picture for a character I have in mind, but I just couldn’t find it. This was a close one, but the eyes and eyebrows needed to be darker and the hair lighter. I touched this photo up on PicMonkey, and voila! (original photo via)

I used Highlights and Clone to lighten her hair, Eyebrow Pencil to darken her eyebrows, Spray Tan to turn her irises brown, and Mascara and Eye Brighten to darken her eyes and eyelashes. It’s a lot of fun to edit pictures like that because they turn out so different than the original!

Before we finish, here’s a few miscellaneous tips:

Don’t Overdo It! This is one of the most important things to remember when editing portraits. You might be tempted to make your subject’s skin look perfectly smooth and their eyes look super shiny, but that looks fake. Stick to realistic edits unless, like for book characters, you’re purposely making them look different.
Go Royale: Unfortunately, a lot of the Touch Up tab is Royale. If you take pictures of people a lot, you might want to consider upgrading to Royale to get these and many more features. I have Royale, and I love it! It is, however, 30 something dollars a year, so I would recommend thinking about how much you’ll use it before buying it.
Improvise: If you don’t have Royale, you can often concoct your own Touch Up tools from various free effects and features elsewhere in PicMonkey. (For instance, using “Draw” instead of Clone.) The more you use PicMonkey, the more you’ll be able to master it.

So that’s about it! Many of the tools I didn’t talk about are self explanatory, so have fun experimenting by yourself! 🙂 If you have any questions, I’d be happy to hear them I’ll try and help you the best I can.

Thanks for reading!

***Allison***