Busy, Busy, Busy!!

This is my busiest time of the year for sure!

As a high school English teacher, I am trying to keep up with all the grading. That is a full time job for sure! I am also the sponsor for our Student Council ,which is in charge of all the Homecoming activities. And Homecoming happens to be next week. MAJOR stress. Oh, and I am also a class sponsor, so I have to organize the all the stuff the class has to do for Homecoming. I am currently spending part of each day designing and painting a banner for the parade because if I didn't, it wouldn't get done. Luckily I have a few good kids I can rely on and delegate some things to, but there is just so much that I have to do myself.

As a photographer, fall is my busiest time of the year for senior and family sessions. Everyone wants fall pictures. I spend every Saturday taking pictures, then every evening editing them. It takes a lot of time to edit a senior session, get prints and products ordered, then package and deliver everything. I certainly earn the money I make from it. I often find that I am not charging enough to even make $10 an hour, but I find it hard to raise prices.

Lightroom is only my first round of editing

Creating a personalized app for a client

I love everything that is keeping me busy, but by winter, I will definitely be glad for a break!

Do you find that the things you love sometimes keep you so busy that you need a break from them?

Cupcake Dress

No, I didn't make a dress that looks like a cupcake. I like a few of Katy Perry's songs but not enough to dress like her!

I had a friend commission me to make a Princess Anna cupcake dress for her youngest daughter's birthday. I had made a princess cupcake dress for my niece's birthday a few months ago, and my friend had seen it and wanted to know if I could make one for her daughter.

My Niece's Princess Cupcake Dress

Originally I started making them last weekend. A full weekend early! I had gotten it in my head that it was that weekend. Luckily, I posted on Facebook what I was up to, and she sent me a message to stop me. I had already baked the cupcakes, but luckily had just started the icing!! I did have to do a cupcake giveaway, but that didn't prove to be too difficult. 

As my cupcakes were in the oven, I worked on coloring the icing that I had frozen (haha...Frozen!) from last week and sketching out the dress. 

I had to make black icing for the first time. I knew enough to start out with chocolate icing though, so it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. 

The blue wasn't perfect, but it was close enough. The mauve was actually much closer to Anna's dress than it looks in the picture. 

I thought the dress turned out well.

My friend had a great crown and scepter she found on Etsy, but she was going to add those at the party. 

I really hope this is a birthday "cake" that one little girl will always remember. I can still remember some of the awesome cakes my mother spent hours making for me. She would buy those shaped cake pans, then make all colors of icing and use that star tip to cover the cakes. I know her hands had to be cramping from all that decorating! What love!!

Do you have any birthday cakes from  your childhood that have become part of a fond memory?

It's been a long time...

Obviously I haven't posted in a long, long time. I am the type of person who tends to really get into something and throw everything I have at it. The problem is, that it is never a slow, steady burn, but more of a quick, hot burn that ends up burning out way too quickly. I get this from my Dad. He tends to get into expensive hobbies that cost a lot of money (like laking and diving), drag the rest of the family into his hobby, then drop it for something else. Oh, well... such is life.

I decided to check on my blogs (I have several) because I have decided to either start back up my photography blog or begin a new one in order to help promote my photography business. I was actually surprised to find that both this and my photography blog still get daily traffic! It's been 3 years since I've actively posted, but there are still some posts that draw in new visitors. I was truly surprised.

Surprise Face from My Niece and Me!

I also realize how much I've missed blogging. Maybe I will pick it back up, at least in some form. I know I no longer have the time to post as often as I used to.  Still, I would like to share with you.

Oh, and... still single.