FREE! Etsy Banner Templates

I love freebies, don't you? I also love just designing banners for fun in my spare time.  I was searching out blank Etsy banner templates earlier today just to see what might come up and I wasn't in love with really anything I was seeing so I decided to play around with some designs and put them up on this blog for anyone who wants to use them. Enjoy!

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I Definitely Overdo It... Do you?

Have you ever wanted to make your child happy and give them everything you never had growing up? Yeah, me, too.  Have you ever gone to lengths you never thought you would just to give them what you think they might want?  Rosalie lost her favorite seahorse stuffed animal (Majestic) on our move from Texas to Washington and was absolutely distraught without it. Of course we bought it in Texas and so I had to hunt one down by phone and have it shipped. She was happy and I felt like I had done the right thing, but had I really?

Rosalie with Majestic, her seahorse.

There is a great article discussing this issue here that is definitely worth the read. What do you all think? Are we going to far to try and make our kids happy?

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The Power of PhotoShop

Have I told you guys yet how much I love PhotoShop?  I got it and put it on my computer a while ago but all those crazy buttons, well... Let's just say it sat completely untouched for far too long.

Yikes.

Well, I ended up figuring out a few of it's features this past week or two and honestly it's amazing and I can't believe I wasted so much time on awful pictures!  Check out some of these before & afters:

Before

After

Before

After

My camera tends to always take really dark, sort of "meh" shots and so I was really happy when I figured out how to brighten up the shots. What do you all think of PhotoShop? Have any fancy tricks or actions you want to share? Put them in the comments! 

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Behind the Scenes

Yes, I've been terrible about posting. It's been two whole months since the last time I posted and it feels like the blink of an eye. Here I am, though. I've been spending my time dabbling in some amateur photography in order to have better pictures for my Etsy shop. I have a built in model in my daughter as she has fantastic hair for modeling (unlike me, ha!).

Taking pictures with a 4-year-old, though, is definitely not always easy and there are many (MANY) instances of unusable pictures. I have to take 300 pictures to get 20 usable ones most of the time, so I thought it might be fun to share some of these fails with you.

Let's see... first there was the park:

Getting ready... and yes, her socks don't match. One is taller than the other. Shh...

Often we have to resort to candy as a bribe.  Today it's an Elsa PEZ dispenser and lemon PEZ.

Whenever she gets the chance to strike a silly pose she takes it!

Then there was the beach:

Tripping over a driftwood log.

Not at all impressed.

Taking pictures with a toddler is always an adventure for sure! I don't know how professional photographers do it.  Tomorrow I will post the better shots I got and show you how awesome Photoshop is for just a little editing. I just discovered it and I can totally see what all the hype is about.

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