Making Chili... Exciting.

I watch cooking shows all the time. Cake Boss, Giada at the home, Barefoot Contessa, Chopped, Top Chef. I don't know what it is, but they're kind of... awesome? And addicting? I ask my parents all the time to give me a basket of weird foods so I can make something, but.. Well my basket always ends up being something along the lines of bread, mayonnaise, and ham. I mean, come on.

But that's besides the point. My point is, cooking is interesting to me. I don't know if I want to be a chef, but I'd like to be able to cook up some good food once in a while. So, my mom taught me how to make chili.

First, we put the ground meat in the pan.

Then browned it.

Poured in the chili powder.

Then we opened up the chili beans..

And poured them in..

Then we put in some diced tomatoes.

Stirred it up 

We also cooked rice to go with it.

Put the chili on the rice and topped it with some cheddar cheese :D

And there it is. Chili :]

See ya in my next adventure!

Holiday Nails

I am absolutely terrible at painting nails. I'm sloppy, I'm impatient and I cannot be still and hold the brush. But, it's the holidays and I love being festive, so I decided to give it a shot.

Upon googling holiday nail images I get things like this..

Or this..

And I was like, well... ok. I'm going to have to come up with a simple holiday design. And, I think I did :]

Left hand I just kept basic. It was hard enough to paint my nails without getting it all over the rest of my hand.

The right hand, I decided to do Candy Cane diagonal stripes. It's really nothing complex, but when you look at it you would automatically think "Christmas". Besides, no one will be examining my hands up close, and from far away it looks pretty cool.

Those are the nail polishes I used to do this :] 

Hope you enjoyed! And if you have a hard time with nail polish like I do, maybe this gave you an idea :] See you on my next adventure!

Today You Will Shine

So, today I really wanted to paint. Just abstract, nothing really, painting. I
did that, and I really liked how it turned out, but I decided I wanted words to go with it. I stumbled upon some quotes and "Today you will shine" really stood out to me. It showed me, happiness is a choice. You can be awesome, or you can be upset about everything. And if there's something making you upset, you can change it. Just by telling myself every morning "Today I will Shine", I think I really can. So here's my adventure. :]

You will need a Canvas (Mine is 12 by 12)

Some paint brushes

Acrylic Paints

Vinyl Letter Stickers. (Mine are 2 inches)

The first thing to do is paint and paint and paint. I just did random abstract painting, because that works best for a project like this. Plus it's easier and more dream like. 

Then I used the black acrylic paint to do some random swirls.

Next, I added the letter stickers onto the canvas once the paint dried. 

Then, I went over all of it with white acrylic paint. That was really hard, because I didn't like just painting right over what I did. But I reminded myself, it would look really cool, so it was ok. 

And I peeled the stickers off and here is how it turned out! 

I love it! See you on my next adventure!

Decorating for the Holidays

Ok, so the holidays are coming up, and this year I decided to try and decorate my room for them. 

An easy way to add a touch of holiday cheer is by throwing  a red, green, blue or white blanket over your bed. If you have small lamps, you can take a Santa hat, and place it on top. But don't turn on the lamp with the hat on there.

I found this little decoration in the attic, and I just set it on top of my printer.

I have these little cube shelves, and I just added some random holiday decor. Like a Holiday Card box, a Merry Christmas pin, and a little sign that said "Joy" that I made myself. 

I put a Christmas Song book on my keyboard, so hopefully I'll learn some holiday songs soon. 

And I added a little decorative Christmas tree on my dresser. 

It's not a whole lot, but it's something new and fun that I wanted to try this year.  I was inspired by Abby Ziegler's photos of her bedroom newly decorated for the holidays, and I decided to give it a go.

 Off to my next adventure!

Holiday Cards

Hey, again. Another adventure :] Tis the season to be jolly, and tis also the season to make holiday cards. I like personalized cards better than those that are store bought, so here are some that I've made. I obviously need more. But. For now, this is what I have. 

In this card, I did my first ever sewing on a card. And you can tell completely. I just used a needle and thread along the edge. It's not perfect by any means of the imagination, but the idea is that it's handmade, so perfection isn't important. 

This one is really 3-D. The tree is popped up, and the little pearl ornaments are also coming out. 

I cheated on this one. Rather than using a needle and thread, I just took a white gel pen and did some fake stitching. 

Alright, well I hope this got you in the spirit to spread some holiday cheer! Off to my next adventure :]

Ok, so today's adventure was something soley based on photography. Ina ll of my adventures, I incorporate photography but today, my advenutre was photography. 

Tiya had a photo shoot where she designed outfits. I was her assistant so I got to take lots of pictures :]

Zoe and Joey were two of our models. 

Along with Sara..

and Cheyce.

The color scheme was black, white and red. 

Zoe makes some creative adjustments to the scarf...

Sara had on a black leather jacket and a ripped white shirt over a red tank top.

High fives for great modeling! 

Their more serious looks...

We shot at a playground which made for some really neat contrast. We had the whole punk/rock/edgy thing going on and then we had a whimsical play ground in the background. I love it! 

My main regrets in the photos were the shadows. It was difficult to find angles that looked right with the scenery, but didn't have shadows. Sara's face is priceless in this one, but unfortunately, it isn't easily seen due to the shadows. 

Cheyce's friend Sydney came along too, and to be honest, she was the best model of all of us. She totally worked the polka dots, stripes and suspenders. 

Would've been such a good picture if we didn't have that shadow over Cheyce's face!!!

Sara's face was awesome in this picture but there was so little contrast that I decided to try to photoshop it. See how we have so many blue ish tones? I wanted some warmer tones so I played with the brightness, saturation and contrast of the photo. I also cropped it so the focus would  be more on Sara. 

I'm not an expert, but as it was an adventure, I wanted to experiment. I think it turned out pretty cool. :]

Another picture that would have been perfect had the lighting been better. Since I had just done some photoshopping, I tried to photoshop this as well. 

This picture is. Ugh, it makes me smile. Her hair looks amazing..almost like it's on fire. It looks awesome. Plus, the photo is a lot brighter, and photo shoot looking. And all I did was play with the brightness and contrast! 

I love this photo as is, but as I was on a photoshopping role, I just had to mess around with this one as well. 

This photo is so dream like and whimsical but somehow it maintains an edge.  I can totally see these in a magazine. 

This was just a kind of behind the scenes group shot. I like it despite the lack of posing. Maybe it would make a viewer feel like the clothes were more wearable on them, rather than seeing it on someone doing, say, a split.

This was another one of those shots. I probably would've liked the picture better had I taken it from where they were all staring off too. 

I like this one, as it gives a full shot of the clothes. And you would never suspect that..

Well. Yeah.

I like the idea of small group shots, and I like the way they're standing. But their faces.. Are..creepy. Sorry guys. 

Cheyce looks like she's up to no good, while Zoe is over there killing Joey. Hmmmm....

Chloe was here too! She did a great job being a model too. I love the lighting for this shot. 

Ahhh an everyone shot. Including.. me.. Don't ask what kind of face I was making. I am not model material. But, hey, I tried.

A photographer feels a sense of pride when capturing laughter on camera. :]

Joey's face. Zoe's face. Sara's face. Cheyce looks perfect though!! I might crop that photo...

I think this captured the outfits alright, but there isn't really anything interesting or unexpected about it other than maybe the faces they're making. Photo shoots are not as easy as they seem.

I think we utilized our environment well throughout the shoot, and this is just one of the ways I think we succeeded. 

Must crop this photo. That is an awesome picture of Sydney. Not only does it show off her clothes, but it also shows her happy in a natural environment, with lots of angles and lines. 

AWWW. A full shot of Cheyce with pretty flowers in the background. Her shirt may have been the most bohemian-esque of all of ours. So I think it goes nicely with flowers in the background. 

I like this shot as well, because it shows the clothes in a different way. The only problem is AGAIN the lighting. But I'll photoshop it. :]

Looking at these two photos right after the other makes me laugh. He didn't fall, but he just posed in two different positions. Funny though, how you would assume he fell... 

Joey, the male model, had to die. 

He seems to be taking it pretty well. 

Here is how we applies the makeup. :]

And that concludes my adventure! :]