It’s almost Teacher Appreciation Week!  This year we’re doing a little treat for the whole staff each day, ending with a big catered lunch on Friday.  One of the little treats the staff will be getting are the water bottles.  Remember these?

Except I needed one that said ‘staff’ to include everyone in the building.  So…TA-DA!  New and improved water bottle labels for ya!  And 4 to a page for easy printing for multiple pages.

You can find the DOWNLOAD HERE

I have been filling my shop with digital goodness and have more coming out this Friday.  You can keep up with all the OSD news by subscribing to the newsletter and liking the fan page on Facebook.

And since I’ll be working on keeping my shop full…I need some Creative Team ladies to help me spread the word.  I’m running a CT Call until April 25th.

If you’re a scrapper…digi, paper, or hybrid…and would like to work with my goodies for freeeeeeee, then apply!  All applications are reviewed and appreciated!

Andrea!

She wrote, “Fab giveaway! How schweet to get a mystery box of craft sway”

Andrea…I’m emailing you now.  **UPDATE** Andrea, please email me, I can’t seem to get through to you on email… domesticatedlady [at] gmail [dot] com

Thanks to everyone who entered!  And never fret…I have another exciting giveaway coming soon

Do you know about Pick Your Plum?  It’s an awesome site that features a cool, crafty item discounted every weekday.  I’ve seen everything from chalkboard vinyl to tees, headbands to lacy leggings.  Seriously cute stuff, all at a great deal.

Imagine a box full of swank crafting swag valued at $75 arriving on your doorstep…not bad right??  Here are some items that have been featured in the past.  (they might not necessarily be in the giveaway box, but this gives you an idea of all of their wonderful goodies!)

Here are the details.  You must have a US shipping address.  Please leave a comment below to enter.  You can also like PYP on FB or sign up for their newsletter as additional entries.  Just come back here and leave a separate comment saying you liked them on FB or signed up for the newsletter.  The giveaway will be open until Tuesday night, March 20th at midnight EST.  The winner will be drawn on the morning of Wednesday, March 21st.  Good luck to everyone!

I’m trying to take lots of pictures today to document this extra day.  You can check them out on my Instagrams or on Twitter with the tag #extra day.

So far I’ve worked out with a friend and bought some groceries.  Still on the list? take a kiddo to the dentist and then convince said kiddo that a quick trip to Michael’s really will be quick.  Famous spaghetti for dinner and basketball practice, followed by all of us watching House of Anubis, which we are just addicted to.  E-lix-eeee-ir!

So what are you doing with your extra day?

Capturing moments with our cameras is one major way to record our lives. We document everyday moments, major life events and places we visit. Having your best camera in your hand when each of these moments occures doesn’t always happen. However you may be more likely to have your phone with you. If that is the case, and your phone has a camera…you are in luck! Below you will find a few tips on ways to get the most out the camera on your phone.

{disclaimer…this is written with information on using the iPhone camera. If your phone varies some adjustments may be necessary.}

Get close and on the level of your subject! Below are three examples of my son, Jace. The first was taken from the location that I was at when I first launched the camera app on my phone. Jace was in the center of theframe but he gets lost in the surroundings. I stepped closer to fill more of the frame with him. The focus is definitly on him and what he is doing at the moment. I still felt like the piece I wanted to remember most about this moment was how happy he was to ‘work’ in the yard. I knelt down and was able to capture his happy face…for me, this was the best way to capture this moment.

Another tip involves forcing your camera to focus where you want. Within the frame the iPhone camera is designed to take into account the entire scene. I was at a play with my son, Jameson. The auditorium was quite dark, with the excepection of the stage. To force the focus onto the lit stage, I had to trick the camera. The first image is an example of how the camera would default to photograph this scene. Since 75% of what was within the frame is not the stage, the camera will use the settings for these area, instead of the stage. The scene on the stage is what I’m hoping to document.  The second example is one where I tapped on the screen to force the focal point to be on the stage. When you do this you will see a box appear on the screen of the iPhone. The camera will then adjust its settings to meter off of this 25% of the frame and photograph the stage so it looks best. This feature can be used not only in poorly light situations but also when you taking a close up photo of a person.

Taking your phone camera to the next level is possible with add on lenses…no longer do you need to invest in an SLR camera to play with lenses! I recently purchased a set of three from PhotoJoJo.com. I selected the fisheye, zoom and wide angle lenses. There are many options on the market to add to your phone camera. One thing that made me choose these particular lenses was that they didn’t require a special case to attach to the iPhone. Below are a couple examples of images that I captured using these lenses. The first was captured with the fisheye. I so enjoy the distortion that puts the main focus on Jameson’s plane. The second image was captured with the zoom lense. I was so excited to be able to capture Jameson mouth as he was making the zoom noise of his plane. Since I had the zoom lense on, I was able to capture this moment without being quite so close to him.

Another fun way to play with the images you capture with your camera phone involve using photography apps. There are apps that can make collages of your images. This is how I created this 3 in one image. This was done using the app called diptic. This particular app has a wide variety of layout choices as well as the option to brighten individual pictures. There are many other apps to choose from to play with the images you capture!

Overall I hope that with these tips you are able to capture more of the moments of your life – not only the ones that happen when you have digital camera with you.  Using the camera that is in your hand to document these moments is always going to be better then not having the memories captured at all.

Last night seemed to be the perfect time to try out my new little gadget, the babycakes cake pop maker.  The perfect time because, first, I wait until the last minute to do stuff, and second, because I needed to make treats for the teacher luncheon at school today.  Ok, so I mixed up a regular chocolate cake mix and poured it into a big squeeze bottle I have.  *I think the squeeze bottle made it ten times easier*  I heated up the babycakes and filled each little pocket almost to the top.  It works kinda like a waffle iron.  If you get it too full it just runs out of the sides.  Trust me, I did this a few times and it didn’t seem to alter the cake pop in any way.  After about four and a half minutes cook time, I opened the machine to find 12 cute little perfectly baked chocolate cake balls.  Which, by the way, really do taste like chocolate cake.  Honestly I was afraid they might taste like Easy Bake Oven food…you know?  I popped them out and set them to cool on the handy dandy little pop tray that’s included.

Traditionally, I guess cake pops stand up on a stick with the pop at the top.  Cute, yes, but I would have had to find some sort of display to hold them and I was running out of time and energy…I decided to go with sitting pops.  I’ve had a set of 25 red and white paper straws from Hey YoYo for a while now.  I figured they would work as little handles for the pops.  Since I was serving to a large crowd, the handles also work well so that everyone is not touching all the food, kwim? I cut the straws in half (good straws, by the way) and dipped the ends in some melted chocolate wafers before I speared the cake pop.

I dipped the whole pop in the melted chocolate wafers and sprinkled them some cute mini hearts.  I added flags to just a few.

The teachers loved them and I spared a few for our dessert tonight.  Happy Valentine’s Day!

Since it is February now, I thought I should get out some of my February stuff…

Groundhog Day Pudding Cups

The Valentine Wreath

those cute leopard print bags

And to decide what Valentines we’re going to make this year…will it be

or these (or maybe both?)

And don’t forget to grab this one, too!

I’ve got lots of great things planned for February, so be sure to sign up for email updates, subscribe in a reader, check out FB, and follow on Twitter!