♥ Shutter Love Tuesday ♥

Come by Every Tuesday to enter your PHOTOS

This linky party will be open for 48 hours. Then every Friday, Tara &  Jamie will share with you our favorite 
"10 Photos" 

Don't forget to grab the "Shutter Love" Button HERE and place in your post to share with everyone, 

so they can enter their photos too! 
If sharing with other photo program, please leave a link back to Shutter Love Tuesday!

There will also be a prize for "Viewers Choice" So after you enter your photo, make sure you vote for your favorite by leaving a comment below. Please share why it's your favorite. 

PLEASE DO NOT VOTE FOR YOUR PHOTO. We know why you think it's fantastic. LOL 

Voting is open to everyone. You don't have to enter a photo to vote.

This weeks theme is "PETS"

Be sure to check the sidebar for up coming themes! 

Remember to link to your photo
 not your home page. Thanks!

Also please enter a photo taken by "YOU" 

(one entry per person please)

Keep photos friendly for all ages please or your entry may be deleted. Thanks!

Tara's "PET" Photo

Jamie is out on vacation and will be back next week to share more fun photos with you!

Don't forget to grab the blog hop so other can enter their photos too!

Little Wonder Company Personalized Children's Book Review

Let Your Child’s Adventure Begin…with a customized character storybook!

Little Wonder Companypersonalized children’s books are different than others out there as we seamlessly integrate a beautiful illustration of your child–that you help build online–into every page of a storybook adventure.

The best part? That is when the child opens the book and immediately sees himself or herself as the main character in the adventure.

★ I received the amazing book ” Little Girl Wonder” to review for my daughter. It is just way too cute. First, I went online and created a character for her. Including, skin tone, face shape, hair color, hairstyle, eyes, and more accessories. Making the character was so simple and once I was done, that was it. Just place the order. You receive your book quickly too. No waiting weeks for shipping. I love that. Our book turned out so nice that I am going to plan a “Little Girl Wonder” birthday party for her. Complete with capes and all. I think these personalized children’s books are the perfect gift for any child. Top on my list this year! ★

A little more info on the books they offer….

Little Girl Wonder… This story takes the special little girl in your life into a world where she becomes the superhero. In Little Girl Wonder, she will escape into the world of Sunny Valley where she rescues a little boy from the likes of a fire breathing dragon and saves the day!

Little Boy Lightning… In Little Boy Lightning, we take the same basic adventure and twist it a bit to better fit the special boy in your life. Your little boy zooms down the rainbow slide on his skateboard and helps keep the kids of Lightning Valley safe from the dragon and other menacing characters blocking their way.

Little Wonder even offers Gift Certificates… So if you just aren’t sure what to get, you can get this and they can choose exactly what they want. Perfect gift. I think. Once you order it, Little Wonder will send over the GC to your email within 48 hours. Then you can forward it to your recipient.

Things that I Love...

• Customize a character to fit your child
• Your child will get excited when they see their image in a book
• Great story lines any kid will love
• Many characteristics to choose from to help you find the perfect character for your child
• Fun blog to follow info on Little Wonder
• Great for gift giving ~ your kids will love giving this as a gift
• Get a Gift Certificate for that special kid in your life

The featured product {s} in this post were provided to me free of charge by the manufacturer or pr company representing the company. All opinions expressed in this review are my own and not influenced in any way by anyone. Trendy Treehouse Disclaimer/Terms of use.

♥ Guest Blogger ♥

Sorry that I have missed a couple guest bloggers. End of the school year busies!!! LOL My kids have 3 days left, then it's "School's Out for Summer" Did you start singing the song? I did! 

Anyway, I have a wonderful "Guest Blogger" today! When I saw this project, I knew you all would love it and just had to get Patrice from Lemon Tree Creations over here to share it!

I'm Patrice from Lexington, Kentucky. I am a wife, mother, and teacher and love to spend my free time dreaming big dreams. It wasn't too long ago that my husband and I bought our first home. One of the best decisions we made back then was to only fill our home with meaningful things. Ever since then, I have spent every decorating bone in my body moving, crafting, building, painting and hanging happy things all over our tiny house. I recently started a cooperative crafting blog with some good friends, called Lemon Tree Creations. I'm fairly new to the blogging community, but have been an artist my whole life. I am constantly being inspired by everything I see in the world around me, and have recently embraced the fact that inspiration can be found in even the most surprising of places. 


Book Art

I am a major fan of the book page crafts. I have several versions of "book page wreaths" that you can find hanging throughout my house. However, working with all of these pages from books got me thinking, "what about the book covers?" I quickly started to realize my book covers were laying useless, and I could just not let this be!

So, here was my solution to that problem...

(Now before you cringe, I also have a solution for all of you book lovers out there. Trust me, my husband wouldn't just let me murder good literature for the sake of artwork. We simply reattached the book jackets to the classics, sans hardcover, and they are still very much readable! Mostly only the dictionaries and thesauruses will be used for other crafts later.)

Here is how I did it. I started with about 20 books, most of which were judged by their cover, so that they would look good in my dining room and/ or living room. (Though I did choose about 4 favorite titles to throw in the mix to make it a little more meaningful for our family.) I then simply removed the covers with scissors as seen below.

I used an $8 piece of birch wood from Lowes as the base. I chose this wood because it was light weight and would be easier to hang.

I did NOT glue anything down yet. I went down the side and around the perimeter to make certain their were no edges or gaps of the wood being seen.

When the entire perimeter was complete, I still did NOT glue anything down, but then made a second and third layer to give the piece more visual interest. I was happy at this point that I had not begun gluing, because I had to rework the layout SEVERAL times to make it look the way I wanted it too. I was after an appearance of the books coming out towards you at the center, so the thickness of the hardcover, mixed with its texture had to be played around with a bit.

Once I came up with something that worked, I began gluing down each cover, starting the corner and working my way around the perimeter again in the original pattern I had followed.

To hang it, I simply used picture brackets I also got from Lowes for about $2. I just measured three inches in from the top corners and screwed them in. Then I connected a thin gauge wire between the two brackets.

It only took about 2 hours from start to finish (minus finding the perfect place to hang it!), and cost less than $30.00 for all of the materials. In the end, I was pleased with how it turned out. As soon as I hung it on the wall (without waiting for Matt to help measure it out...oops...) I was pleasantly surprised to see how the piece seemed to bow at in the middle just like I had hoped. It looks great on the wall. After moving from its original place in the living room to the dining room, I have no intentions of taking it down any time soon!

I have been struggling with what to call it. I guess it would be reclaimed art of some kind. I have found myself in the past few days trying to tell people about it and saying, "well, its, uh book sculpture for the, uh, wall?" Makes no sense to me either, don't worry. So if you come up with something better, comment and let me know!

~ Patrice

Thank you Patrice and Lemon Tree Creations for sharing this fun project with us. I was so excited to see this because I am a big fan of books and reading, so this will be a great project for me! I can't wait to make one. And since I am addicted to buying craft books, I think I may make one with a craft look for my work room. YEAH!

Car Cozy Tutorial

I've seen these car cozies all over blog land...
and I figured I needed to make one too.
I made two right away, one for a birthday present
and one for my son...
So, here's my take on the car cozy.

I used the freezer paper stencil number fabric for my "garages".Then I freezer paper stenciled some yellow dashes onto black fabric.I sewed the numbered fabric to the bottom of the green fabric,
and sewed lines to separate each little numbered spot.
Then I sewed the black road onto the green fabric as well.Then I painted little lakes in the top corner in case the little boy has boats too.
Once the front is done simply sew it right sides together with the back fabric
leaving a spot for turning,
and don't forget to add some ribbon or elastic (that's what I used) near the pockets area
so you have some way to keep it all rolled up when it's not being played with.I also did top stitch around the whole thing,
just makes it a little sturdier!Here's the back...found this in the remnant bin at JoAnn's,

I love 40% off fabric!So, all in all pretty simple.

But pretty cool. The little boys love it!
But next time I'm going to make it smaller,
so that it will travel to church easier!

Would love to see your take on this one as well!

Check out where I am linking this fun project here!

♥ Shutter Love Top Ten Photos ♥

Wow, We were so excited about how many entries we had this week. Thank you so much for making this such a fun link party. It was so hard to choose this weeks top 10. I love nature. There are so many beautiful shots you can get. WOW! Okay so on to our winners!

This weeks Top 10 "Nature" Photos are...

Our #1 Choice is "Daisies" from Six Cherries On Top

Beautiful photo ~ We love the crop in this photo as well as the focus.

#2 ~ "Dizzy" from Raznoggle

#3 ~ "The Work Pond" from Create and Delegate

#4 ~ "My Favorite Tree" from Under the Table and Dreaming

#5 ~ "Perfect Spot" from Shorties Funny Farm

#6 ~ "Bees at their best" from Live Every Moment

#7 ~ "After the Rain" from Two Story Cottage

#8 ~ "Sand Hill Cranes" from Mountain of Dreams

#9 ~ "Stop and Smell the Tulips" from Twelve Crafts till Christmas

#10 ~ "Frogs" from 1 Wasabi Mom

Our Viewers Choice this week is....

"Foggy Mornings" from Trying to Reason

Congratulations!!!

Thank you to everyone who entered their photo. 
Please come back Tuesday for the theme "Pets". 

Remember to share with friends by copy and pasting the blog hop code this Tuesday! 

If you are a winner, go you pick up your Prize Button

Hand Stitching Memories Tutorial

I wanted a unique handprint of each of my kids. I had seen it done before where they just stitch a traced handprint on plain muslin. It was very cute, but I wanted a little something different. So this is what I came up with. Hope you like it and you can find inspiration for some of your own.

What you will need....

• 3 types of fabric (my largest fits in an 8 x 10 frame)
• Black embroidery Thread
• Embroidery needle
• Pencil and Tracing Paper
• Your child's handprint
• Scissors
• Spray adhesive
• Pencil

How to make this....

1. Set aside the largest piece of fabric. This will be what you stitch the hand and name to. 
2. Grab your adorable child and trace their hand onto a piece of paper. Cut out.
3. Use the paper pattern you just made and cut out a fabric hand. Next, use Spray adhesive on the back and place onto your large fabric piece. You could also pin it if you don't want to use the adhesive spray.
4. Take your needle and thread and begin stitching around the whole hand. You can use any type of stitch you like. I just kept mine simple. I liked the way it looked with this one. X's would be cute and so would a blanket stitch.
5. Now take your third piece of fabric. I cut mine in a rectangle shape and fit to the length of my daughters name. Yours may be smaller or larger depending on the name. (but you could also leave this part out if you didn't want to add the name) Stitch just below the hand print. I think it would be cute to add their age too!
6. Adding the name.... I used a pencil and wrote out her name in cursive and just stitched over the pencil markings. It would also be cute to have your kids write their own names. If they are old enough.
7. Place in a frame or glue to a canvas board and hang on the wall. Enjoy it for years.

These would make great grandparents gifts too! I can see 9 of these in line at my moms house. I know she would love it. If you make any of these or have your own version, I would love to see them and even share your photos in this post. Thanks!

Check out where I am linking this fun project here!