Wednesday, December 19, 2012

thanks a latte | diy teacher christmas gift

i must give pinterest the credit for this one. i was browsing through pinterest and found a lot of cute ideas involving a starbucks gift card. i really wanted to do something like this for my daughter's teachers because i know they LOVE coffee. as like most of you money is tight, holidays tend to add up, but i wanted to do something small for madison's teachers because let's face it, they work SO hard! so, i ran into starbucks and grabbed a couple of gift cards, coffee sleeve's, and made a cute little printable. easy as 1, 2, 3. just in time, if you wanna make one for your special teacher or friend--i'm sharing the printable, all you need to do is download the image {i taped the gift card to the cardstock, and then taped that into the coffee sleeve} and they loved it!
to DOWNLOAD free printable : CLICK HERE 



Saturday, December 15, 2012

a quick letter to santa

today we wrote a quick & easy letter to santa. if any of the rest of you have a five year old, you know their attention span is short so last night i designed up a quick letter for madison to write to santa. it was short and sweet-- and just in time to see santa this week :)  if you want to write one too, i am adding the image that i created to this blog post- in gold letters as madison requested. so, just right click, save, & enjoy! (photo taken with my iphone) 



Sunday, November 25, 2012

in pictures | holiday lights

nothing reminds me more of the holidays than christmas lights. we had a few extra strands of lights since our new tree came pre-lit & madison asked if we could hang some in her room. i thought, why not! but before hand i wanted to snap a few photos of her tangled up in the lights because let's admit it, we have all seen those adorable photos on pinterest of kids and christmas lights. i wanted one to frame & bring out with my christmas decor...and lamb had to be in the photos also. choose your battles. happy holidays. 

Friday, November 23, 2012

our family photos | 2012

i am feeling so beyond blessed right now. i am usually the person behind the camera but because of my talented brother in law, we were able to get some shots of my family. thank you so much chris! we appreciate your time more than anything. happy holidays from the starkey family. 








kate + chris = avery & anderson

meet the adcock family. this mini session was very special to me as i got to photograph my big sister and her beautiful family. aren't avery & anderson just the cutest?! here are just a few of my favorites from our little time together. love them so much! 





Wednesday, November 14, 2012

diy | hand stamped salt dough ornaments

the other day my good friend sophie from the forge posted on her IG a photo of salt dough ornaments. you can follow her @theforgeblog. anyways, it got me thinking how fun & cheap this would be with madison. so i instantly turned to pinterest for addition inspiration. you can check out my christmas board here, if you're interested :) anyways, i cut the recipe in half to make it easier to knead. madison & i started with the original recipe which i found here, but it was too much dough to knead & they dried uneven. so we tried again with a small ball of dough. 

anyways, here's how we did it (plus a few tips along the way)


1/2 cup salt 
1 cups all purpose flour 
1/2 cup luke warm water 
mix flour & salt first, gradually add water. it is important to knead the dough as long as possible for the minimum of 5 minutes. 
**tip- the first attempt we did not knead long enough, causing the ornaments to dry unevenly.

next: you can dry in the oven @ 200 degrees for 3 hours, but the next tip- ours had brown spots after drying and i really wanted mine to just be natural so it popped on our green tree :) so i let mine air dry for 3 days. (you can see in the gift tag photo, what it will look like during the drying process) 

anyways, it was easy. madison loved it. we chose to do simple circles because during our first attempt with the different christmas shapes, they failed to look anything like the shape. so we went simple. you can hang them on your tree, use them as gift tags, or gift them to family for the holidays. 
first photo: taken with iphone 








Monday, November 12, 2012

fall fun

now i remember exactly why i agreed to move to north carolina from pennsylvania. it's november and today we wore skirts and t-shirts. what a beautiful day & we still have fall leaves to play in. here are just a bunch of fall photos from our walk in the leaves today as a family. enjoy some photos of madison & i think husband will make an appearance in one :)  happy fall days to you all...i hope you also enjoyed some fresh air during this weekend. 










Thursday, November 1, 2012

happy halloween

happy halloween! sooo i'm a day late! just wanted to share our annual family photo from halloween. every year we dress up together in family themed halloween costumes. this year, we were a family of flowers...madison's request. now that she is older and wanting to pick out the costumes, we gotta roll with it. thankful i have a husband that would do just about anything for his daughter :) halloween 2010, we went as a shrek family. not sure if this year's flower family beat out shrek or not. what do you think??

Friday, October 26, 2012

monte & maureen | a butler, pa wedding

maureen and monte's wedding day couldn't be more perfect. a great location and beautiful fall weather! i thought i would share some of my favorite photos from the day. i loved working with the two of them, as i have known the bride maureen for years now. also, check out red hot chameleon entertainment as they posted a video, where you can sort of see me in action ;) check it out here & congrats again to the happy couple! once again, a lot of photos are on this blog post so i apologize but hope you enjoy!