Featured Friday! Creation Held Captive

Today I am featuring Creation Held Captive! It is Jeannine's photo/creative blog. Jeannine is a co-author here at Fireflies and Jellyebeans. She loves to take pictures and has recently starting to crochet! She doesn't know I am featuring it today so it will be my little surprise! : )


Here are some Awesome pictures of her flowers, just as they are starting to grow out of the ground! These are some of my favorites!
Here are some cute things that she made for me and my son!
Here are some more amazing pictures around her house and neighborhood!

You also can check out her Esty Shop JeannineBean

Be sure to check out Creation Held Captive! and show her some blog love by leaving a comment or two!

Jeannine, be sure to take our Featured Button for your blog!


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Do you have blog that you would like to see featured? E-mail us your submissions. Just use the "About us and Contact Info" link on the side bar!

How to make a Tri-fold card Tutorial and Giveaway!

It is our first giveaway here at Fireflies and Jellybeans!

We are excited and I hope you are too! Not only are we giving away some FREE cards but I will also be showing you how to make your own! What a deal!

This Tri-fold card is an idea I got from my friend Amy, but she does not have a blog to show off her talents. I love it because it does not need an envelope! I have added my touch to the card and you can add yours!

Here is the tutorial (I will have the rules for the giveaway at the end of the post):

Materials :
12X12 paper
ribbon
coordinating scrap paper
embellishments (I like paper flowers)
circle punch (optional)
paper cutter (optional)
scoring tool (not pictured) - I use a skewer and a ruler

1.) Cut your paper into 12X4 strips

You should get 3 strips from a 12X 12 paper (great for 3 cards!)

2.) Make scoring marks at 4 inches and 9 inches on the top and bottom of the paper. I make mine pretty light so I can erase them later. If you have a scoring tool you can score at 4 inches and 9 inches.
3.) Line up your ruler on your two marks at 4 inches and use the skewer to score the paper. Do the same thing at 9 inches.

4.) Fold your paper into the middle at the scored lines
The flaps should overlap.

5.) Using the circle punch, punch out a circle in coordinating paper and attach your embellishment to it. Or you could stamp a monogram or picture on it too. Attach the embellished circle to the card hanging off the flap slightly

6.) Cut a piece of ribbon about 13 inches long and tie around the card to keep the flaps together.

Vua-la 3 beautiful cards! They are great to use and give away as gifts, speaking of giving away...

And Now the Giveaway!

We will be giving away 6 cards: The set of 3 red-Asian themed cards above and this lovely set of 3 spring-flower cards here: I can add a monogram stamp to the outside or inside if you would like as well.

Rules:

1. We will only ship to US addresses

2. The giveaway ends on May 31st at 9 PM Central Standard Time at that time I will use a random number generator to choose the winner.

If you have a blog I will leave a comment that you won, if your blog is privet or you do not have a blog leave a way for me to contact you if your e-mail is not available from your profile.

3. We will mail the cards out by June 3rd

Enough rules... here is how you Enter! You can get up to 6 entries!

Leave a comment for each entry:

1. Leave a comment about what your favorite homemade gift to give is.

2. Become a follower of our blog

3. Blog about this giveaway (leave a comment with the link)

4. Facebook this giveaway (leave a comment with the link)

5. Tweet the giveaway (leave a comment with the link)

6. Grab our button for your blog

Good Luck!!

How to Make a Graduation Card-in-a-Can

What do Grads want? Cash or gift cards! Here is a fun way to dress-up giving them a gift card.

It is similar to my Mother's day card-in-a-can. But I wrote "Congrats on graduating" and I did not add any photos and tied a gift card to the bottom of the ribbon. I like to use scrapbook paper that has the school colors in it!


For the full tutorial go HERE

May Give-Away day

May 27th is Giveaway Day at Sew Mama Sew!

We are going to have our first giveaway here at Fireflies and Jelly Beans on that day! So, stay tuned!

Featured Friday- Homemade by Jill

Today's featured blog is Homemade by Jill. . The thing that has drawn me to Jill's blog is her quiet book. She had inspired me to make one for my little king. I am hoping to do it for his 2nd birthday, but after seeing all the great stuff that Jill has done it might be for his 3rd.

Here are some of the cool pages she had done:
Numbers page
Fish page
Farm page


She also has some great tutorials:
Spring Tote
Taggie Animals

Be sure to check out Jill at Homemade by Jill. and show her you stopped by, by leaving a comment!


Jill, be sure to take our Featured Button for your blog!


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How to Make a Father's day Story Card

This is my husband's first father's day. So I wanted to make him something special. Our journey to parenthood was not the easiest and we adopted our son a little over 6 months ago. It has been wonderful to be parents.

This Father's day book tells the story of how my husband became a dad. Each page is in the shape of the letters spelling out f-a-t-h-e-r and all the lines of text on the pages start with the letter (Ex- the page that is in the shape of the "f" all the lines of text start with "f"). I also thought of writing down traits that start with the letters as well, but got excited about making the story.

Materials:
Paper
scissors
small box (to wrap it in)
adhesive
photos
ribbon (not pictured)
Markers (pictured but I didn't end up using them)

the brads and the skewer and the ruler are also in the picture but I did not use them... in the original plan I was going to but went a different direction and didn't want to take another picture... you get the point!

1.) Trace around your box 6 times (one for each letter). This will make sure that it will fit in the box when you are done.

2.) on the back side of the paper draw out your letter... be sure to draw it backwards since it is the back side. I wanted mine to be big and block-y

3.) Decide what you want your pages to say. If you are going to write a story or the attributes. I printed mine off on the computer using some fun fonts. I cut the writings out for each page.

Here is what each page says:

F

Far away in Korea a little boy waits for his parents

Far away two parents wait in America for a child

A

A lot of waiting

A lot of prayer

A lot of trust in God brought this family together through

Adoption

T

Traveling to Korea so that we could all be

Together

H

Home at last on Nov 5th

Here to stay is our son

E

Everything Changes

Excited to be a family

Exhausted from lack of sleep

R

Rightfully matched together

Raising a son takes a lot of

Responsibility

4.) I like to antique the edges on the paper to make them not so sharp. I use a brown ink and rub just the edges and the corners on the ink. It is a nice touch.

5.) Attach your text to your pages

6.) Punch holes and attach your photos

7.) Tie your ribbon through your book:

8.) Decorate your box and place your book inside! I used tissue paper, and extra paper scarps and Mod Podge (to attach). I wrote "Happy Father's Day" with a Sharpie

I hope that you have a great Father's day!

Spring Ruffle top

I have wanted to make a cute top since I have started sewing again. I was waiting for the right tutorial to come along. One that was easy enough for me to follow but was also stylish. It was a tall order, I know

When I saw the this Spring Ruffle Top tutorial on Sew Mama Sew I knew that this was what I was waiting for!


Here is how it turned out! The fabric that I found was made in Korea which is where we adopted our son from so, it makes this shirt extra special!


I learned some new things while doing this (like how to do pleats and ruffles and that ironing matters in sewing). Don't look at my stitching too closely! But over all I am happy with it! I can't wait for it to be a little warming so I can show it off!

Featured Friday- Ikat Bag

If you haven't checked out Ikat bag yet, you really should! LiEr does amasing things with felt. She also does other wonderful project for kids. Her writing is very personable and down to earth, and has a bit of wit that I love. There are so many tutorials that I love from her site that I can not list them all but her are a few:


Pickable Pea Pods
Pickable Strawberries
Foam Dirt bed for planting

Be sure to check out Ikat bag and leave her some comments to show our love!

LiEr be sure to take our button for your site!



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Do you have blog that you would like to see featured? E-mail us your submissions. Just use the "About us and Contact Info" link on the side bar!

How to Make a Cute Circle Card

The Math person in me wants to call this C^3 (c- cubed) but I will resist!

This card is great for Thank yous, Birthdays, Notes... anything!

Here is what you need to make this cute card:

Materials:
strip of Decortive paper
cut out circle (mine is from Yours Truly from Archiver's but you could trace and cut out one or use a circle cutter too)
score tool (I use a skewer stick and a ruler)
Hole punch

Scissors

Pencil
Ribbon
Embellishments (I am using paper flowers)

1.Turn your strip of paper upside down and place your circle on top where you want it to cover

2. Trace around the edge of the circle and cut out, turn over and place on top of the circle

3. Now we are going to score the top paper so that it opens nicely. I use a ruler and a skewer. I place the ruler where I want the fold and run the skewer (pointy side down) along the edge of the ruler for a straight line. If you have something better than that- use that! Make sure you leave enough room to punch the holes on the other side of the fold!

4. Make sure your paper is lined up on your circle and punch 2 holes though both layers

5. tie a ribbon through the holes to attach the paper

6. Add any embellishments and writing that you would like to the card, or you can leave it plain too!

I hope you enjoy making this cute circle card!!

Featured Friday- Poppies at Play

We are starting a new article here at Fireflies and Jellybeans. Featured Friday.

We would like to feature blogs that inspire us. We want to share with you the blogs that we so enjoy to drop in on!

The first ever Featured Friday Blog is:




Andy shares with us the projects that she is working on as well as encouraging others to be creative in their own way with "Creative Cat Tuesday" (which she has been lovely enough to feature us)

I loved her Mini skirt purse tutorial and she also has a cute candle stick holder tutorial too.


Be sure to check out Andy at Poppies at Play! And leave her some love by commenting!

Andy be sure to take our Featured Button for your blog!


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Do you have blog that you would like to see featured? E-mail us your submissions. Just use the "About us and Contact Info" link on the side bar!

How to Take Great Pictures

I am by no means a professional photographer. I just love taking pictures. And one time I took 3rd place in a local newspaper photo contest.

I once went to an Ansel Adams show at a local art museum. He was quoted as saying (I can't find the direct quote, but it was something like): The best way to take really good pictures, is to take LOTS of pictures. That way you're more likely to have a few good ones. I have taken this advice to heart as I've endeavored on my photography hobby. I've highlighted some of my own tips for taking great pictures here. Below, I'll show some examples.

1. From Mr. Adams, take LOTS of pictures (so you're more likely to have a couple good ones). This is even easier in the digital age - you can just delete the ones you don't like.

2. Take the same picture in different ways: different angles, lights on, lights off, flash on, flash off

3. Don't be afraid to seem "silly." Some of my best pictures I've taken laying down in the grass, with the camera pointed up at something.

4. Experiment with your camera's settings. My camera has a settings for landscape, portrait, flower (close up), water, sunset, low lighting, bright lighting, etc. Try the different settings on the same picture to see what looks best.

5. Experiment with photography software. You can crop, brighten, darken, make black and white, and do lots of other things with digital pictures. Just make sure to save a copy of the original so you can always go back to it.

Below is an example of some pictures I took recently. These are unedited, straight off my camera. You'll see how I took several pictures of the same thing, at different angles, and in different ways. Some are blurry. Some are too dark. Some have too much clutter in the background. Some just look weird. But some are really good. And I will probably edit the good ones to make them even better. And THOSE are the pictures I show off to make people think I'm a good photographer. Most people don't see all the mediocre (or bad) pictures I take.

**I like taking pictures of flowers.**

And another set:

Click here to see some of my best photos on my photography blog.