15th Birthday Photo Shoot

In just over 2 weeks, my oldest daughter Raegan will be 15 years old. Tonight, it was gorgeous out- sunny, warm, a light breeze... so nice. But, Raegan had to baby sit. By the time she got home, I was busy as well. I had literally only 25 minutes of free time at once point tonight, and I grabbed Rae and my new camera. I tugged her out the door, had her brush her hair in the car, and drove around the corner to a small outdoor "market" place.

The market place has nice richly colored brick columns, which make for nice back ground color.

Here are some of my favorite images from the shoot, which was done in about 15 minutes. The first image below is unedited- it was shrunk and watermarked, but no edits were done to it.

I took this photo intending it to look as it does above- sideways with Raegan laying down on the ground. When I started playing with it, though, I found it looked better right side up, so that's what I did- flipped it.

I do really like it this way- in color. But, I decided to keep trying some edits.

This is what I settled on- I love it in black & white- it's crisp and clean, and she's more striking in it.

Here are some more of my favorites- some have several edits with them.

Twilight Party: The Cupcakes & Favors

For Rae's party, we made the cupcakes ourselves. Actually, Raegan did! We used a white cake mix, strawberry pie filling, and cream cheese frosting.

To make:

Make the cake mix up according to the directions. Fill cupcake liners about 1/3 of the way. The bottom should be fully covered in a thin layer of cake mix. Spoon pie filling into the liners- the filling shouldn't touch the sides of the liner at all, or it'll seep out the sides later! Cover with more cake batter until it's covered, and the liner is filled to the right amount!

Bake as normal. Let them cool, then frost. To add the vampire bites, we used a small straw to poke holes in the top, then another straw to drizzle the Strawberry glaze left from the pie filling into the holes, and dragged it downward. The end result? Cupcakes that look like a vampire took a bite! Very tasty! You could use any red pie filling or even red jelly for this!

For the party favors, my step mom came to the rescue! She found bags of red slime that looked like bags of blood! So cute! She sent them to us with the banner. She also made magnets from those clear, flat sided marbles, both large and small. They each had  a smiling vampire mouth on them.

Twlight Party: Book Covers

To help tie the book covers into the party, we added in several of the items to represent each one.

From Twlight, Red Delicious Apples to eat.

From New Moon, I found plain white fake tulips at Dollar Tree, and red nail polish for $.50. I streaked them red! We laid them out on the table, but then gave one to each of the girls.

From Eclipse, Tattered and torn red ribbon. I found wide red satin ribbon at Dollar Tree, and bought 1 roll. I used scissors to snip holes, then rubbed at the loose threads and pulled at them to make the ribbon tattered and torn. We wound one length around one of the containers, then let the rest of it trail around the table.

And from Breaking Dawn, I found a Chess set from Dollar Tree (actually, Nick got it for Christmas from Raegan, who got it at DT, so it was on-hand), and grabbed out all the black pieces to set around the table. I also found in my possession, a fun wooden candle holder from Goodwill, and a glass apothecary jar also from Goodwill. When I set the jar ontop of the candle holder, it looked like a Bishop! I spray painted the holder burgundy, and stuck them together.

Those were the ways we incorporated the book titles into the Candy Buffet- I think they turned out really good, and I didn't spend much at all for all of it.

3# of Red Delicious Apples- $2.99
Chess Set- $1 (was on hand)
Wooden Candle Holder- $.29 (was on hand)
Glass Apothecary Jar- $.29 (was on hand)
Red Satin Ribbon- $1
Tulips- $1
Nail Polish- $.50

All in all, even counting the on-hand items, it cost me $7.07 before tax, and part of it doubled as food on the buffet! Part of the ribbon will be salvageable for future projects, too.

Some fun, easy ways to decorate, though, for a Twilight party. Maybe a party for when Eclipse comes out in June?

This post is linked up to the awesome parties found here!

A Twilight Party: Candy Buffet!

Today is the big 14th Twilight Birthday Party for my daughter. She's been so very excited for this- not that I haven't been! We did a lot of fun things, but let's start with a view of the candy buffet...

I opted to go with a color theme for the candy- red, black, silver, and white. Then, I realized that it just is NOT easy to find black candy that is NOT Licorice flavored! But, we managed!!

Here's what we had:

Peppermint Puffs (Red/White)
Hershey's Kisses (Red/Silver)
Root Beer Barrels (really dark brown)
Milky Way Dark (SIlver/Black wrapper)
Pop Rocks (Red/Black)
Gummy Raspberries (Black, Red)
Gummy Raspberries (different type) (Black, Red)
Candy sticks (Black/Pink, Pink/Red, Red)
Rose Suckers (Red)
Red Hots (Red)
Fruity Stars (White)
Wintergreen Gumballs (Silver!)
Red Licorice
Black Licorice
Red Laffy Taffy Sticks
1 Red Foil wrapped Chocolate Rose (for the birthday girl)
M&M's (Red, White, Black)
Special Dark Pieces (Black, Burgundy, Red)
Black Grapes (fruit!)
Berry Mix- Strawberries, Blueberries, Blackberries, & Raspberries
Red Delicious Apples

That's a lot of stuff, but notice how I worked fresh fruit in there?

This post is linked up to the awesome parties found here!