Mom to Bed by 8

There are some amazing giveaways going on over at Mom to Bed by 8's blog. Check them out here:

SOOC Saturday (The View From My Back Door)

The other night, I looked out the window and saw the most beautiful sunset. I grabbed my camera and rushed out the door and took picture after picture until it was too dark to take any more. The pinks, reds, oranges, yellows, and blues made for a magnificent view. It was as if God was painting the skyline, and he certainly didn't need any help from photoshop. ;-)

I feel so blessed to live in such a beautiful place, where I can enjoy amazing sunsets (smog free), see all the stars at night, and hear nothing but the crickets chirping and the frogs croaking.

Mmmm, blissful.

I hope you enjoy these as much as I do.

You can also check out other entries for SOOC (straight out of the Camera) Saturday by clicking on the link below.

~Amber

Writing to My Sisters

Christy & Kelly:

I'm going to write you a both a letter this week, and get out some feelings that I have never been able to say. Even today, when we had our little confrontation in the store parking lot, I just couldn't seem to get the right words out of my mouth.... they were blocked by the lump in my throat and the knot in my stomach. I couldn't get out the right words because I could feel the tears in my eyes coming closer with every word I spoke. So, I'm going to write to you instead.

Then, I am going to respect your wishes and never contact either of you again. It is pointless for me to continue to try and have a relationship with two people who apparently hate the sister that they have never actually known. Of course, you only hate the version of me that has been described to you, which is not who I actually I am at all. So, I will let go, and not try any more. However, I want you to know that I will never stop being your sister, and I will never stop loving you or praying for you.

If one day you realize you made a mistake and you want to know me after all, I will be here. I will always be available to you in that way, because that's what family does. I have never wanted anything more than to be your big sister and your friend. I have desired that relationship for as long as I can remember, and I have been denied that over and over again. So for now, until you change your mind, I am just going to stop putting myself in the place where it is so easy for me to be hurt be your selfish actions.

I don't know if you will ever see this blog post... part of me secretly hopes you are curious like me and you google my name just to see what comes up... If you do, maybe you will read this. Of course, I don't know if you will read the letter I send you either. For all I know you may drop it in the trash as soon as you realize it is from me. If you do, well... oh well I guess, Not much I can do about that. I tried, and now I am done trying.

This is the only picture I have of all three of us together. To my knowledge, it is the only one that even exists. I hope that changes some day, but I'm not holding my breath any more.

I love you still, Amber

Waterfront & Macro Challenges

Here are a couple more photo challenges for this week. I am really enjoying entering these, as I feel it is helping me grow in both my photography skills, and my post processing knowledge. Looking at everyone else's photo's always gives me some great ideas. I hope you will also check out the links below and gains some inspiration from everyone's amazing photography.

Waterfront:

This picture was taken in Bandon, Oregon, the day after my Mom and Step Dad's wedding. It was taken using my old Pentax Film camera. I love how the focus is on the grass, but you can still see the ocean in the background. It is one of my favorite pictures from that day.

Macro:

This picture was taken outside of our local junior college after the first big snow of the year. I love how the light is shining through the leaves and reflecting off the melting snow.

That's all for now.

~Amber

Some Great Giveaways Today...

Wow, there are some amazing giveaways out there in internet land today! Check these out:

First up, Waterwaif is hosting a number of fabulous giveaways on her blog. You can check all of them out by going to her home page, and looking under the "Current Giveaways" tab on the left side. I am entering her giveaways for a SavvySilver gift certificate, a yummy cupcake soy votive candle set from Hollyberry Hill, a brass birdy necklace from MDsparks, and a bird's nest pendant from Rebecca Novotny. These people have some beautiful stuff!!

Audrey's Giveaways always has a bunch of giveaways going on. Right now, you can fins giveaways for everything from jewelry and shopping bags, to soaps and coolers. Amazing stuff! Click on the link below to check them out and enter as many as you want!

Songberries is hosting a giveaway for a lot of Softlips products and for an amazing Soda Stream machine! Yum!

Canadian Natural Mama is hosting a giveaway for the most adorable hand stamped doggy name tags!! They are made by Make Your Dog Smile, and I think they are awesome! She is also hosting a giveaway for some very sweet little girl hair clippies by 2Cuties.

Susie B. Homemaker is giving away a travel mug by Brugo Mugs. This is one high tech mug and it comes in a bunch of colors. Check it out!

I don't know about you, but I really enjoy looking for giveaways, and the thrill of occasionally winning something. I post these here on my blog for two reasons... One, because I usually get extra entries that way, and who doesn't want a better chance to win?! And two, because I truly hope that some of my bloggy friends win some of these awesome giveaways also. So, enter to your hearts content, and let me know if you win something! I actually recently won a giveaway by ComeShopPinkLemonade on Etsy. I just placed my order with my gift certificate, and I can't wait to see my prize! :-)

~Amber

Bloggy Friends Giveaways!

Hey there,

Two of the blogs that I follow are currently hosting giveaways, and who doesn't love a giveaway?!

The first is The Paper Mama. Her giveaway is for some really cute address labels from Pear Tree Greetings.

The second giveaway is over at Clever's Corner. She is hosting a giveaway from the Etsy shop, Waterwaif. Waterwaif carries some beautiful jewelry and original artwork.

And the third and final giveaway for today is over at Denise Yezbak Moore. She is hosting an amazing bead giveaway. I am almost hesitant to post it here because I don't want anyone but me to win it! :-)

You should go and check them out, and hopefully you will win something awesome!!

And speaking of giveaways... I am planning on hosting my second giveaway sometime in July, so be on the lookout!

~Amber

Wedding Post, Part 1: The Cake & Candy Bar

This past weekend, I had the pleasure and the honor of helping my friend Kelly with her wedding.

I have known Kelly and her family since I was about 10... maybe younger. Kelly, her sister Megan and I always looked similar as kids, and spent a ton of time with each other, so I became their adopted sister. They were both bridesmaids in my wedding 6 years ago. We have always had the kind of relationship that you can come back to, even after not seeing each other or talking in a long time. Just like sisters. Oh, and we bicker like sisters too. :-P

From the very beginning of the wedding planning we knew I would make her cake (of course!), but eventually I also became her official Wedding Coordinator. I love weddings, and I usually end up filling this role at friends weddings anyways, so it only seemed natural that I would be that person for Kelly. At the end of the day, I had worn many hats, including that of cake decorator/cutter/server, DJ, bar attendant, driver, forgotten marriage licence retriever (LOL), stress reducer, and probably a few others. Basically, I was there to make sure that Kelly and Will's wedding went as smoothly as possible, and I do think that I succeeded. The wedding was beautiful, and so many people pitched in all over the place to pull it all together.

Despite being incredibly busy, I did manage to sneak off and take a few pictures throughout the night, or at least until Kelly's camera died! I don't have all of them yet, so I am just going to post them as I get them uploaded. First up: the cake!

I spent most of the week working on her cake, and I was thrilled with how it turned out! The inspiration for Kelly's cake came from Marth Stewart Weddings. There was a cake on the cover of the magazine that was plain white, with a swarm of multi-colored butterflies cascading up the cake. That is what Kelly wanted, just in pink. I love the butterflies!

Kelly also asked me to put together her candy bar, so I decided to have the cake and candy on the same table. My mom and I decorated all the containers for the candy, and then I just set up the table.

For the candy bar, we had Rock Candy, small and large Whirly Pops, Watermelon Licorice, M&M's, Strawberry Gummy Puffs, and Raspberry Chocolates, all in pink of course!

This was the first candy bar I have done, and also the biggest wedding cake I have made. All in all, I was thrilled with the result, and so was the Bride.

I can't wait for the chance to do it again!

~Amber

P.S. I am linking this blog post up to Sweet Shot Tuesday for their photo challenge. The first photo in this post is my "sweet shot" for the week!

New Photo Challenges

I was so busy with my friends wedding this past week, that I didn't have a chance to enter a few photo challenges. That's okay though, I found some new ones.

Check out my pics, and let me know what you think!


My first entry is for In a Yellow House. The theme there this week is Water.
I took this picture at the Lower Burney Falls in beautiful Northern California. Shortly after taking this picture, I managed to get my car stuck in the snow, and was almost 2 hours late for my ceramics class. You know what? It was totally worth it.

My second entry this week is for Simplicity. The theme there this week is Self Portrait.
I kinda like this picture of myself. :-)

My final entry is for Trendy Treehouses' Shutter Love Tuesdays. The theme there this week is a Father's Love. I have lots and lot's of pictures of my Dad. But, they either were not taken by me, or they do not fit this theme. So, I am adapting the theme a little bit here to (Grand)father's love. If it doesn't count for the challenge, that's okay, I still wanted to share this photo. This is my Dad, with his Grandson giving him a big ol' kiss. I love, love, love this picture!!!

Well, that's all from me for tonight. Soon I will have pictures from the wedding I helped coordinate this last weekend. It was tons of fun, and really beautiful, so be on the lookout for that post! Until then, have a good night all.

~Amber

Photo Challenge *Sleepy*

I just keep finding more and more photo challenges! :-)

This one is from The Paper Mama.

Her theme this week is Sleepy, specifically related to children. I many not have any human babies, but I do have fur babies, and they are often very sleepy! Here is my entry:

This is my very sleepy pup, Shelby. She is part Lab and part Great Dane, and she has humongous paws! She is still very much a puppy at 1 1/2 years old, so when she finally stops running and jumping at the end of the day, she just completely crashes! Isn't she sweet?

~Amber

A Few More Photo Challenges

I am finding that I really enjoy photo challenges. I love looking through my pictures to find the perfect one for theme, and I really love looking through all the other submissions. I feel like I learn more and more about photography just be looking at other people's work. On that note, I have found a few other weekly photo challenges that I will be submitting my work to. I am going to try to submit pics on a weekly basis, however I am also going to try and post them all in one post next week, instead of in a bunch of separate posts, with the exception of the iheartfaces entry.

The first entry is for The Trendy Treehouse, for Shutter Love Tuesday. The theme there this week is Smiles.

This is the other son of my friends Daniel and Melissa. He is the big brother to the adorable baby I posted yesterday. This little man is such a cutie himself!

My second entry is for In A Yellow House Photo Challenge.

The theme this week is Nature. My entry is one of my favorite shots of Mount Shasta. I love living in an area with such gorgeous scenery. I could take pictures of this mountain every day and never tire of it!

That's all for now. I'm off to bake. :-)

~Amber

Another Photo Challenge!

While looking through the entries on iheart faces, I came across another blog that also hosts a weekly photo challenge.

The theme this week is school, and I figured I would give it a shot. So here is my entry:

My adorable cousin Nila, celebrating her graduation from Sonoma State University!

YAY NILA!

iheartfaces - Babies

Here is my iheartfaces entry for this weeks theme, babies!

This adorable little man belongs to two great friends of mine, Daniel & Melissa.

They have two little guys that are just so cute!

Check out all the iheartfaces entries by clicking on the link below.

The Finished Product, and Etsy Stuff...

My Aunt's birthday party was great. We all had a blast... good food, great people, and a whole lot of laughter. Oh... and cake. You can't forget the cake! I had an idea for her cake, and this is how the idea actually turned out:

Aunt Paula loved it, and everyone ate a bunch of it, so it must have been good! :-)

This week, I will be crazy busy with wedding preparations for my friends Kelly. She is getting married on 6/19, which also happens to be my anniversary with my darling husband! It old him he got lucky this year... a pre-planned date with free food, drinks, and dancing! Lucky man! Anyways, I will be busy this week making her wedding cake, preparing her candy bar, finishing some other things here and there, and then acting as her coordinator on the day of. Should be fun, and I'm excited!

In other news... I have been selling on Etsy for about 2 months now, and I have already made 7 sales! This week, I joined a few teams on Etsy. Teams are basically smaller groups of Etsy members who network together, share skills, and promote each other. I joined 3 teams: Christian Artists Promoting Shops (CAPS), Christina Artists Street Team (CAST), and Christian Artists and Crafters (CAC). I am really excited about these teams, and I have been really enjoying looking through the items in my teammates shops! I just created my first treasury, which is a collection of items I like. The treasury shown here includes some of my favorite items from CAPS team members. Check it out here!

That's all for now. Have a good night all. :-)

~Amber

Cake

Today, I am busy working away on my Aunt's birthday cake. I have an idea of what I want the cake to look like, and I am just working on getting it to that point. This is a rough drawing of what I have in mind:

So far, I have just baked the cakes and started making the frosting... I still have a whole lot of work to do! Since I have to transport this cake 4+ hours, I decided I am just going to finish it at my destination. Tomorrow I will pack up all the pieces, frosting, tools, etc, and head down to Sacramento. The I will finish the cake Saturday morning. I am pretty excited about it... can't wait to see how it turns out. I'll be back Monday with plenty of pictures of the cake, and the party.

See ya then!

~Amber

New Creations

I have been working on a lot of new things lately.... jewelry, photography, items for my friends wedding, cakes, etc. I have been busy, busy, busy! In the next few weeks, the busyness will continue, and I love every minute of it! :-)

So, here is a peek at a few things I have been working on. I am will be posting a bunch of new stuff on Etsy soon, so be on the lookout!

Blue Three Strand Necklace. The Silver Three Strand necklace was so popular on my contest that I decided to a make some more in style. This is the first one:

This necklace I just threw together before a party to match my outfit. It is one of my favorite new pieces.

My old cork board was looking a little worn. So, I got some fun fabric yesterday and covered it! I added some ribbon around the edges and also at the bottom. I love the look of it now!

This weekend, we had a party for my cousin, Nila. She just graduated from Sonoma State University! I made these cupcakes for her graduation party. They were champagne cupcakes... YUM!

Little books...

And diplomas...

And grad hats with honor cords!

So that's what I've been up to. This week, I am making a cake for my Aunt Paula's 60th birthday, and then the following week I am making the cake for my friend Kelly's wedding. I will also be her official wedding coordinator for all the "day of" stuff. She also put me in charge of creating the candy bar, which I am super excited about!

Hope you all are having a good week so far.

~Amber