Minty Fresh {Field Photoshoot}

Hello, dears!

Before I start this post, I just wanted to say thank you all SO much for your lovely birthday wishes! I had a wonderful day filled with love from friends and family, fun gifts, delicious food, a lovely walk in the woods, and a movie night. 🙂 I can’t believe I’m 19. O.o And yes, I will hopefully post about my birthday gifts next, because I know you guys enjoy those posts (as do I). 😉 So stay tuned!

But for now, I am SO excited to show you guys this photoshoot! I looked out the window one morning and saw that the wheatfield across the lane looked silver. It had just rained and the sun caught the bedewed wheat in a breathtaking way. I dropped everything and took heaps of pictures of all the little wonders I found at the edge of the field -including a large amount of ladybugs and water drops, which made for some amazing photos!

Have fun browsing through these minty-hued pictures!

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Moving On {Part 1}

Heyyy there, guys!

Wow, I haven’t had this long of a post gap for a long time. Okay, a week really isn’t “a long post gap.” XD But like I said, posting is going to be somewhat irregular because we’re moving! Before we do, there’s a good bit of work to be done in both the houses and the new farm in general, and that’s what we’re doing right now. Going down there for a couple of days a week keeps us pretty busy, phew!

Anyway, I thought I’d make a series of posts showing our process, with pictures that we can look back on as a sort of “before-and-after” of the whole project. Today I’ll be sharing our work on this house so far, which we call the Cedar House:Isn’t it cute? This is the second house on the farm, and the one we will use as a guest house (and possibly an Airbnb later!). We’re fixing it up first so we can stay there while we fix up the main house, which will need more big-picture repair, like the roof and ceilings.

But before we get to the renovations, I wanted to show you these pretty pictures from the drive there. I love mountains. ♄

This one is probably over-edited, but I like it. 🙂

The walls were marked up pretty badly and in definite need of a fresh coat of paint. Heh heh.It looks so much better now! We painted it “Intense White” from Benjamin Moore, but the name is rather misleading because it’s more like a nice, light gray. My grandmother (in the picture below) is super good at painting and she comes up and helps us often. 🙂 I rather like this picture. ♄Oh, and speaking of painting, we painted this popcorn ceiling (you can kind of see it in that picture) in an upstairs bedroom, and the next day, it was coming down. The popcorn texture was just peeling off the ceiling, so we had to scrape it all off and sand it down. AND THEN IT HAPPENED AGAIN in the living room. It was awful, especially the fact that plaster dust gets seriously everywhere. The house was coated in it after we were done, and we had to clean hard and long to get rid of it. Woohoo.

The dust doesn’t just get on the house, it gets on YOU. See? Poor Megan. XDMoral of the story: NEVER PUT UP POPCORN CEILINGS.

I, thankfully, didn’t have to sand because I was… um, very busily employed in doing other things. XD But don’t worry, I was working. My little sister Carmen and I cleaned out the kitchen and arranged and organized the few utensils and glasses and such that we had.

It’s so funny, but we both love organizing – and cleaning too, when we’re in the mood. That day we were so much in the mood that we went on to other parts of the house and cleaned windows and swept the deck and all sorts of things. It was quite satisfying. 😛We got creative and decided to decorate a jar and tin can with painter’s tape. XDIsn’t this next picture so cute? I just find it amusing that my seven-year-old sister would do this in her free time. :’)Strangely enough, there are ladybugs all over the house, especially in the corners of the walls. But hey, I’m not complaining – I’d much rather have ladybugs than flies or spiders or stinkbugs. *shrugs*One evening when we were getting a bedroom ready to be painted, we found these strange round stickers on the wall. We all wondered what they were there for, because they were scattered all over the room and kind of blended in with the paint – they didn’t really seem to serve a purpose. But then one of the kids (I think it was me 😛 ) thought to turn off the lights and it was beautiful! The stickers were glow-in-the-dark, and it felt like standing in space because there were so many “stars” on the walls.

It was REALLY hard to get a good picture of, which is probably why I didn’t. Heh. It was much more impressive in real life, believe me. 😉Since we (the kids) thought they were so neat, we peeled off all the stickers and put them on a basement wall in the main house. 🙂

Speaking of stars, you can see so many here! Even though we live out in the country at our current farm (well obviously XD), you can see seriously like five times more stars here! It’s less like individual pinpricks and more like a whole pot of silver glitter spilled across the sky. I love it. 🙂 And yes, I did take a picture, but it’s even worse than the one of the fake stars, so I’ll save it for… uh, never. XD

How ’bout a picture of frost crystals instead to end the post? Guys, it is SO cold at both farms. How’s the weather where you live?Well, that’s about it for this part. I have several more pictures and adventures for later, so stay tuned! 😉

Has you or your family ever renovated a house? Or maybe repainted a room or bedroom? I’m excited to decorate our new bedroom in the main house – and don’t worry, I’m sure I’ll post about that when we do. XD

Well, see you later, dears, and thanks for reading! Have a lovely day, and stay warm. 😉

***Allison***

Return of the Random Photos

My extra photos are piling up again, so I guess that means it’s time for another random photography post! 🙂 YAY! I hope you enjoy!

Aren’t these clouds lovely? ♄

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We found this rather odd-looking bird and figured out it was a chimney swift. I think he’s quite weird. XD

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I got these next few photos when we all went for a ride in Dad’s pickup to go check some fields and see how the soybeans were growing. (Sadly, they weren’t coming along very well, but Dad replanted them – twice – and now they’re doing fine, I think. 🙂 )

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I love the view of our farm from this hill. ♄ Sooooooo pretty!

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Aren’t mountains beautiful?

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My little sister Carmen, holding a barn kitten we named Truffle:

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This is a pretty edit I did of a huge, puffy pink cloud.

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One day we studied ladybugs in Nature Study and went out to search for them in an alfalfa field. It was kind of hard to get pictures, but I got a few neat ones. My friend got an amazing one of a ladybug eating an aphid! But sadly, I did not. 😩 😉

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I really like ladybugs, but I have to admit – they look a little creepy when you put dozens of them in a jar. XD

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These are the kind of bouquets I made to decorate tables for a church potluck in May. It was supposed to be a “Farmer’s Market” theme, so I used a bunch of different stuff from our farm and garden. I think they turned out pretty well, and I love how this picture turned out too!

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Hee hee, well this is random. XD We made the BEST playdough ever (seriously – it is!), just for fun one day when my friend came over. It hardly feels like playdough at all, it’s so soft and silky and stretchy. (Wow, alliteration skills. XD ) You can see the recipe here.

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Another VERY random photo. 😛 I was going to do a mystery picture of a clementine, but it didn’t turn out. I decided to keep the photo, though, because for some reason I like it.

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Lilies are gorgeous, and so photogenic, aren’t they?!

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Okay guys, you are going to LOVE this! We’ve been feeding our neighbors’ kittens while they’re on vacation, and they are the sweetest, prettiest little things!

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Look at those eyes! ♄♄

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XD

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Our neighbor has a wonderful in-ground pool that she so generously lets us use pretty much whenever we want! I thought the clouds looked really neat that day, so logically, I took pictures. XD

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Ahh, I LOVE this picture! The water looks so bright and clear and… almost plastic-y. XD

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Mimosa tree photography…

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It looks like someone climbed the tree and threw a rope into the clouds so they could climb up. 😀

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Hee hee, Megan jumping:

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We shall end with one hilarious picture. My cousin said this looked like a whale farting. XD XD XD

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Well, I hope you enjoyed scrolling through those pictures, my dears! Do you have a favorite?

Thanks for reading!

***Allison***

P. S. Guess what?! My sister Megan wrote the next part of WordCrafters, and it’s GREAT! You can read it on the WordCrafters 3 page here.

More Clayations

(See the previous clayation posts here and here.)

I haven’t made a clayation post for a while, have I? We must remedy that, mustn’t we? I should stop asking questions and get to the post, shouldn’t I?

Ahem.

A lot of these things either were or are in my Etsy shop. That sentence sounds kind of awkward but I don’t know what else to say.

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I made this little fella as a custom piece. I really love how he turned out!

 

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I was trying to make Toto for Dorothy, a clay doll I made a while ago…
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I was really pleased with how this mushroom turned out! I kind of made a bunch. 🙂
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This is my whole collection of succulents – some of which star in my giveaway.
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This was my first attempt at a baby dragon. He’s really-very-super tiny, but he didn’t quite make it to Etsy. I think his brother is a bit better… no offense, little guy!
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This is his brother. 🙂 Shhh! Don’t wake the dragon!
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I made this little cutie just tonight. She got a bit dusty though, so I might paint over her and fix her up a bit. 🙂 I think I’ll name her Angel… But then again, maybe not. Do you guys have any name suggestions?
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It’s fun to make realistic, actual size ladybugs! They look pretty real from a distance. 🙂
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This was a custom order made for Clara (from Clara’s Craft Corner). Maude is so cute – and she looks a lot like our dog, Maggie!
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This was another custom order by Clara. It was really challenging, but he turned out pretty well.
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This is one of my favorite pieces ever, I think. 🙂 He’s for sale in my Etsy shop, but I don’t hardly want to sell him. XD

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This little rose pendant is also available on my Etsy shop.
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And lastly but not leastly we have Miss Snail, a gift for a friend. She’s really shiny from the Triple Thick Gloss Glaze I used.

 

Whew, that was a lot of clay! 😀 Which was your favorite little creation?

Do you like making polymer clay things? I’d love to see them!

***Allison***

Fall Hiking: Part 2

Next up! A hike in the mountains. This is a spider we saw at the very beginning of the hike, but he was scared of my camera so he ran away and hid under his favorite leaf. 🙂

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Below is a rock that looked like someone cut a heart on it, but I’m pretty sure it was natural.

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Does anyone know what this weird red clump-of-berries-on-a-stem is called?↓

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Here’s a strange fuzzy-looking fungus – isn’t he so cute? 😛

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Now for some gorgeous fall trees!

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There was an overlook at the top of the trail where you could crane your neck (and camera) to see a small but very steep falls. I edited this picture because it wasn’t very good to begin with.

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For some reason there were also a lot of ladybugs at the overlook. I took a few close-ups of this pretty lil’ gal resting on my jeans.

090089And that’s it! I hoped you enjoyed the virtual hike – and trust me, you got off easy – that trail was TIRING!

***Allison***